We participate entirely with this landsman in hearty detestation of sharks, well remembering the mixed awe, interest and disgust inspired by the view of a white shark, albeit, a small one for the species, captured after a furious resistance off the Thunny fishery of Palermo in the night, and brought in next morning by the sailors, at the market hour. Dozens of colossal thunnies, alalongas, pelamyds, and swordfish, lay that morning scarcely noticed: the object of general attraction was the dread Canesca, whose mangled body was stretched by itself in the middle of the Place, surrounded by an appalled yet admiring throng, all loud in exclamations and inquiries. The men who had secured the fish, perfectly satisfied with the results of the night’s toil, smoked their pipes complacently, and gave the particulars of the capture to those who pressed round eagerly to hear the exciting tale. Women, of course, mingled largely in the crowd—when were they, of the lower class, ever absent from any spectacle of horror? and accordingly, with either an infant in arms, or clutching a child by the hand, they pointed out the fish to their equally excited neighbors, and with many fierce gesticulations called him “_bruto_,” “_scelerato_,” “_il Nerone dei pesci_,” and other conventional names of abuse for a shark in Sicily; everybody was exclaiming, everybody rejoicing over his destruction. “_Eccola Beppo_; we have him, you see at last,” said one of the crew to a nearing boatswain, just come into the market. “_Buon’ giorno a lei_, I make you my bow, sir,” said the other, doffing his red worsted cap to the fish; “we are all happy to see you on shore; after this you will not invade _la camera della morte_[4] and make a way for the thunny to slip through our fingers again. No, indeed, my lads, now we really have him, you may mend your nets with something like a sense of security.” “Par Bacco and St. Anthony! will you tell me, sir, where you have put the flannel drawers you took from out of my felucca, as they were drying on Sunday last, five minutes after Giuseppe’s legs were out of them?” “_Cane maledetto_—accursed hound—where’s my brother’s hand you snapped off as he was washing it over the side of his boat, not a week ago?” “_Caro lei!_ did you now chance to swallow Padre Giacomo’s poodle, which disappeared so suddenly the day before yesterday, as he was swimming to shore with his master’s stick?” “Gentlemen,” said the master boatman, and proprietor of the Canesca, “you will get more _out_ of him by looking _into_ him, than by asking unanswered questions; so here, my lads,” addressing two of his men, “wash his head and gills well, and show that gentleman—ourself—he is not so small a Canesca as he is pleased to think.”