Early on the morning of January 26th, we spoke and gammoned the barque La Belle Anna, from Melbourne to Mauritius. Through the kindness of her captain, who accommodatingly delayed until we had prepared them, we sent letters home _via_ the Mauritius, which were duly received. On the same day we captured a shark twelve feet long. The capture of this fish is effected more in a spirit of mischief than from any good resulting from it; the sailor deeming him his natural enemy, and delighting in putting him to the severest torture. Their tenacity of life is remarkable. I have seen a red-hot iron run directly through the heart of one of the species, and still he turned and bit at the iron, grasping its seething surface between his huge jaws and craunching it, and, vexed at its non-impressibility, lashing his tail with rage. I have also seen them flayed, and still practising as many contortions as an eel; if you cut their heads half off, they swim away; and if you should open the body and allow the entrails to drop out, the creature seizes them in his jaws and tears them in his agony. The skin is used as sandpaper, it being covered with prickles. The backbone is articulated in very small divisions, which enables it to turn with so much celerity through the water. These joints, which are about an inch in diameter, and half an inch thick, are collected and strung on an iron rod, and, when finished, make an odd, though not ill-looking, cane. Few seamen eat shark; but some months after the capture of the above-mentioned one, I saw a person who considered their flesh a dainty. He was captain of a Colonial whaler, and took every possible means of gratifying this strange appetite. I never saw its flesh cook, but from those that have, I learn that no amount of cooking changes its appearance; as, after a day’s boiling, it appears as raw as ever.