THE SKETCHER

Otago Witness, Issue 1925, 8 January 1891, Page 31

THE SKETCHER

THE HUNTING OF THE SHARKS.

Port Royal, in Jamaica, is famous for its sharks, and I have heard many horrible stories of the deeds of these voracious creatures in those western waters. The following incidents occurred when I was in Jamaica, so that I can vouch for the truth of them : —

It was on a sultry night, in Port Royal Harbour, not many years ago, that three sailors, returning to their ship after a spree on shore, managed to upset their boat. How this accident happened will never be known. The following morning the boat was discovered floating near Fort Augusta, and containing evidence of the tragedy that had occurred. The boat presented a ghastly spectacle; it was splashed all over with blood, and at the bottom lay the mangled and lifeless remains of one of the sailors; one of his arms had been bitten off, and the body had been gashed and torn by the teeth of the sharks. The other two men had disappeared for ever. How the sailor got into the boat is a mystery which was never solved, but it was supposed that the boat capsized and then righted itself, and that the sailor, mortally wounded, managed to scramble back to die, whilst his companions were torn limb from limb and devoured by the voracious monsters which infest Port Royal Harbour. However, the grizzly horrors of the floating boat alone remained to tell the tale of the hapless sailors' fate, and the manner in which the events of that dreadful night took place was left to the imagination of those who discovered the remains.

There were always shark-fishers about the harbour, and the fishirg was a favourite amusement of the battery of artillery quartered there, but this occurrence caused the hunting of the monsters to be pursued with renewed vigour, and many repaired to Port Royal and Fort Augusta, armed with stout lines and huge hooks, to wage war against the relentless man-eaters. Amongst others I took a boat one afternoon, and, accompanied by two negro fishermen, rowed out to the deep dark waters which lie between Port Royal and Fort Augusta. Here we anchored, and, having baited our hooks with large pieces of raw meat, lowered them into the water alongside the boat. No signs of sharks could be seen. Not far off rose and sank the dorsal fins and hog-like back of a school of porpoises which were sporting and chasing each other in the water. Occasionally a shoal of flying fish, chased by a barracouta, would wing their silvery flight for some distance along the rippling wavelets ; but they escaped from one enemy only to encounter another, for they were seized during their flight by pelicans and seagulls, which hovered over the sea, or floated on the water, waiting for their prey. We had been sitting in the boat for more than an hour without anything happening, when suddenly my line was jerked violently out of my hands, and the coils that were lying in the bottom of the boat began to unwind and rush over the side, whizzing through the water at a tremendous pace. The two negroes at once seized the line, and the hugs fish was stopped in its course with the hook well fixed in its throat. And now we all hung on to the rope, and, with considerable effort, pulling hand over hand, we brought the shark to the side of the boat, where it straggled near the surface of tbe water, lashing the sea all round into foam flecked with blood, and blowing up the water with its mighty gaspings. Then we hauled it close to the boat, so that its bead was emerged from the sea, and its nose pressed against the gunwale. One of the negroes then, taking his machete, plunged it into the side of the fish just under the fin. The monster, stabbed to the heart, turned over on one side. Its death struggles were too muoh for us ; we had to relinquish our hold on the line, whilst the brute plunged off, leapt his whole length out of the water, and after a brief struggle, during which the sea for yards round was reddened with blood, it turned on its back and gasped out its last breath with its white belly turned upwards, gleaming blood red through the crimsoned waters in the rays of the setting sun. We then hauled it into the boat for inspection. On cutting it open a large number of small fish were found, some of them alive, and the stomach also contained two sailors' buttons, thus proving to our satisfaction that we had slain one of the murderers. The negroes would not feed on a man-eater, so we cast the body into the sea, where it served as food for its hungry brethren, and for the clouds of sea-birds which hovered overhead. As we rowed off a flock of seagulls settled on the carcass, which they doubtless denuded of flesh in a short space of time. — R. 8., in Land and Water.