I feared now that we should lose him, but he seemed to have gone deep enough to suit his taste, and turned slowly up again; all his movements could be seen as distinctly in this transparent water as those of a bird in the air. One or two more dives of a similar character at length tired him, and he was brought close to the vessel. One of the seamen then sent a harpoon with deadly aim right through him, which caused a furious struggle, by which the hook was snapped short off from the wire. The harpoon, however, held firm, and its rope served to guide a bowling-knot, which caught under the shark's fins, and he was dragged on to the deck. A storm of blows and a chop on his tail soon reduced his strength, which had shown itself in struggles and leaps; his demise was then peaceful. He was fully seven feet long, and seemed a string of muscles. He disappointed me by his craven surrender; a salmon would have given far more play. Great interest was shown in inspecting the shark's interior; a button marked VR or RN might have caused endless speculation, and wonderful tales to be invented. Alas! his stomach contained nothing but a bundle of feathers! A roar from the whole crew was given at this discovery. What could he have been about?--acting a fishy pantomime as a pillow, or turning himself into a comfortable resting-place for Mrs Shark's head? The fact was, that there had been a great deal of poultry plucked within the last few days, and the feathers were thrown overboard. Sharky being unable to grab either the fowls or their masters, had been obliged to satisfy the cravings of his hungry maw with this unsatisfactory substitute. I cut a slice out of him; it was like a skein of wire, so tough and unfishlike. Some preserved salmon that we had for dinner on the following day was pronounced by a youngster "very good indeed, and better than he could have fancied a shark would taste:" and he very likely believes to this day that boiled shark is very like salmon, as we were all careful not to inform him of his error. As we neared the Cape, we were occasionally inspected by some gigantic albatrosses, whose spectral appearance, as they sailed rapidly along with outstretched and rigid wings, and passed from side to side of the horizon in sweeping circles, seemed like the ghosts of ancient mariners thus condemned monotonously to pass their time till the day of judgment. When near the island of Tristan D'Acunha we caught one with a little hook and a line; we brought him on deck, and, after inspecting his personal appearance and ten-feet-wide wings from tip to tip, threw him overboard, when he was furiously attacked by his cousins, who, Chinaman-like, seemed to think death the only fit reward for his having dealt with the white travellers.