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- 1540
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:18.534Z
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- 1474
- text
- devour. These gluttons are the scavengers of navies, following ships in
the South Seas, picking up odds and ends of garbage, and sometimes a
tit-bit, a stray sailor. No wonder, then, that sailors denounce them.
In substance, Jarl once assured me, that under any temporary
misfortune, it was one of his sweetest consolations to remember, that
in his day, he had murdered, not killed, shoals of Tiger Sharks.
Yet this is all wrong. As well hate a seraph, as a shark. Both were
made by the same hand. And that sharks are lovable, witness their
domestic endearments. No Fury so ferocious, as not to have some amiable
side. In the wild wilderness, a leopard-mother caresses her cub, as
Hagar did Ishmael; or a queen of France the dauphin. We know not what
we do when we hate. And I have the word of my gentlemanly friend
Stanhope, for it; that he who declared he loved a good hater was but a
respectable sort of Hottentot, at best. No very genteel epithet this,
though coming from the genteelest of men. But when the digger of
dictionaries said that saying of his, he was assuredly not much of a
Christian. However, it is hard for one given up to constitutional hypos
like him; to be filled with the milk and meekness of the gospels. Yet,
with deference, I deny that my old uncle Johnson really believed in the
sentiment ascribed to him. Love a hater, indeed! Who smacks his lips
over gall? Now hate is a thankless thing. So, let us only hate hatred;
and once give love play, we will fall in love with a unicorn. Ah! the
easiest way is the best; and to hate, a man must work hard. Love is a
delight; but hate a torment. And haters are thumbscrews, Scotch boots,
and Spanish inquisitions to themselves. In five words—would they were a
Siamese diphthong—he who hates is a fool.
For several days our Chamois was followed by two of these aforesaid
Tiger Sharks. A brace of confidential inseparables, jogging along in
our wake, side by side, like a couple of highwaymen, biding their time
till you come to the cross-roads. But giving it up at last, for a
bootless errand, they dropped farther and farther astern, until
completely out of sight. Much to the Skyeman’s chagrin; who long stood
in the stern, lance poised for a dart.
But of all sharks, save me from the ghastly White Shark. For though we
should hate naught, yet some dislikes are spontaneous; and disliking is
not hating. And never yet could I bring myself to be loving, or even
sociable, with a White Shark. He is not the sort of creature to enlist
young affections.
This ghost of a fish is not often encountered, and shows plainer by
night than by day. Timon-like, he always swims by himself; gliding
along just under the surface, revealing a long, vague shape, of a milky
hue; with glimpses now and then of his bottomless white pit of teeth.
No need of a dentist hath he. Seen at night, stealing along like a
spirit in the water, with horrific serenity of aspect, the White Shark
sent many a thrill to us twain in the Chamois.
By day, and in the profoundest calms, oft were we startled by the
ponderous sigh of the grampus, as lazily rising to the surface, he
fetched a long breath after napping below.
And time and again we watched the darting albicore, the fish with the
chain-plate armor and golden scales; the Nimrod of the seas, to whom so
many flying fish fall a prey. Flying from their pursuers, many of them
flew into our boat. But invariably they died from the shock. No nursing
could restore them. One of their wings I removed, spreading it out to
dry under a weight. In two days’ time the thin membrane, all over
tracings like those of a leaf, was transparent as isinglass, and tinted
with brilliant hues, like those of a changing silk.
Almost every day, we spied Black Fish; coal-black and glossy. They
seemed to swim by revolving round and round in the water, like a wheel;
their dorsal fins, every now and then shooting into view, like spokes.
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