I, happening to be in the bow of the canoe as look-out man, amused myself by gazing down into the green, translucent sea, ahead of the ripples caused by the progress of the canoe. The channel could not have been less than three fathoms deep, yet I saw, as clearly as though there were nothing but air beneath me, the broad, moving leaves of great plants at the bottom, and the heaps, and coils, and meshes of twisted stalks, and long, serpent-like withes springing from the fat mud, and which waved with a slow and sickly motion as the passing tide stirred them. There were also great shoals of fish of divers kinds, which fled away on all sides as we advanced; but what fascinated my gaze was the appearance of a huge blue shark, which I could distinctly see cleaving the water about half way between the boat’s keel and the bottom, and keeping pace with us very exactly. I was in the very act of raising my head to tell what I had seen, when I heard a loud exclamation from Walshe, who was steering, and who exclaimed that there was a rope stretched across the passage. The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the canoe struck the obstacle, broached to with the swing of the tide, and in an instant turned over, tilting us all, with a huge splash, into the water. As I went souse into the sea, the vision of the horrible monster which I had just seen shot through my very heart and brain, and striking out with convulsive strokes, in a moment I clutched a mangrove stem, and then, almost unknowing how I did it, I swung myself into the tree. Turning round, I looked for my companions; two were clinging to the canoe, which was drifting rapidly away with the tide. Nicky, my comrade, was in a similar position to myself, but on the opposite side of the creek; but poor Walshe was struggling in mid-channel, vainly trying, in his flurry, to swim against tide. We both shouted to him to sheer to one side; but just as he was attempting to do so, I saw a bluish white glimmer shoot through the troubled water beneath him, and at that moment, the poor fellow gave such an unearthly yell, that the woods echoed, flinging his arms about, and dashing the water into a foam, in the midst of which he disappeared, his cry ending in a loud, choking gurgle. Then there rose and rolled a great smooth, boiling wave, tinged with blood, as the shark, having secured his prey, turned again on his belly, and dived into the deep water. Nicky and I sat looking at each other for near the space of ten minutes without uttering a syllable. Then we began, I know not why, to talk in low whispers, and to consult upon our own situation. Our hope was, that the two hunters, who had stuck by the canoe, would be able to right it, and return for us, and so, joining our voices, we shouted loud and long, but the only answer which came back was the clamour of parrots and other birds, and the hissing sound of the water pouring between the slimy mangrove stems. We had no fire-arms, they having