The largest island contained a salt water lake, which was connected by an outlet with the sea at high tide, and at other times had a depth of about two and one-half feet of water. This pond was alive with fish, and on one occasion a group of junior and petty officers were fishing here in one of the small boats, when a shark was discovered swimming leisurely along with a fin exposed and evidently gorged with fish. The chief engineer, Miles J. Freeman, was bathing, and had waded about a hundred yards from the shore, when his attention was called to the man eater by the party in the boat. The shark had no intention of attacking him, but the engineer did not stop to investigate the state of his sharkship's appetite, and struck out lustily for the shore. Not feeling that he was making satisfactory progress, he got on his feet and tried to wade. The water was just at that depth where no method of locomotion seems best, and so he floundered along, sometimes swimming, sometimes trying to run, until he finally reached the shore and threw himself on the sand utterly exhausted, while the party in the boat held their sides and screamed with laughter. An Irishman named Michael Mars pushed the boat toward the shark, and jumping into the water, plunged his sheath knife into the belly of the big fish. The shark snapped his great jaws and slapped the water with his tail, but, disregarding all orders to get into the boat and let the shark alone, Mars kept up the fight until his enemy was vanquished, and the body was towed ashore in triumph. After some days the sojourners discovered that by driving off the birds from a certain area and breaking all the stale eggs, the nests were soon supplied with fresh ones by these prolific layers, and a palatable addition to ship fare was the result. Meanwhile Admiral Wilkes was cruising off the westerly end of Cuba, thinking the Alabama would probably be there, trying to intercept the homeward bound California steamer. Doubtless she would have been there, had it not seemed to her commander that a more important duty called him to the gulf. Admiral Wilkes reasoned that the Agrippina could never have reached an easterly port against the heavy gale, and decided to look into the harbor of Mugeres Island in the narrowest part of Yucatan Channel, in the hope of finding her. Here he discovered a vessel which was at first thought to be the Alabama, but which proved to be the Virginia, formerly the Noe-Daquy, which was being fitted up to run the blockade. A Mexican officer had seized her, on the ground that she was engaged in the slave trade, and was not disposed to permit her being sent before a prize court at Key West. The complications arising in the case of this vessel kept Admiral Wilkes at Mugeres Island until January 18th, except that he made one trip to Havana for coal. Two days' sail to the westward would have brought him to the Arcas Keys, but he had no means of knowing that the Alabama had passed into the gulf.