I struck the largest shark about a foot from the head with such force, that the whole iron was buried in his body. He shuddered, as a person does when cold, and shook the shaft of the harpoon out of the socket, the weapon being made so on purpose; the shaft fell across, kept fixt to the line, and served as a float to bring him up when he dived, and impeded him when he swam. No salmon fisher ever saw finer sport with a fish and a rod. He had thirty fathom of line out, and we had thirty fathom more ready to give him. He never dived, but sailed round the vessel like a ship, always keeping part of his back above water. The Rais, who directed us, begged we would not pull him, but give him as much more line as he wanted; and indeed we saw it was the weight of the line that galled him, for he went round the vessel without seeking to go farther from us. At last he came nearer, upon our gathering up the line, and upon gently pulling it after, we brought him along-side, till we fastened a strong boat-hook in his throat: a man swung upon a cord was now let down to cut his tail, while hanging on the ship’s side, but he was, if not absolutely dead, without the power of doing harm. He was eleven feet seven inches from his snout to his tail, and nearly four feet round in the thickest part of him. He had in him a dolphin very lately swallowed, and about half a yard of blue cloth. He was the largest, the Rais said, he had ever seen, either in the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean. About twenty minutes before twelve o’clock we were about four leagues distant from the island, as near as I could judge upon a parallel. Having there taken my observation, and all deductions made, I concluded the latitude of the north end of Jibbel Teir to be 15° 38´ north; thirty-two leagues west longitude from Loheia, fifty-three east longitude from Masuah, and forty-six leagues east of the meridian of Jidda. Jibbel Teir, or the Mountain of the Bird, is called by others, Jibbel Douhan, or the Mountain of Smoke. I imagine that the fame was the origin of our name of[205]_Gibraltar_, rather than from _Tarik_, who first landed in Spain; and one of my reasons is, that so conspicuous a mountain, near, and immediately in the face of the moors of Barbary, must have been known by some name, long before Tarik with his Arabs made his descent into Spain.