Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/369

Rh fresh; we thought, too, we perceived a current setting strongly to the westward.

the 30th we sailed at eight in the morning, but the wind was unfavourable, and we made little way. We were surrounded with a great many sharks, some of which seemed to be large. Though I had no line but upon the small fizgigs for dolphins, I could not refrain from attempting one of the largest, for they were so bold, that some of them, we thought, intended to leap on board. I struck one of the most forward of them, just at the joining of the neck; but as we were not practised enough in laying our line, so as to run out without hitching, he leaped above two feet out of the water, then plunged down with prodigious violence, and our line taking hold of some thing standing in the way, the cord snapped asunder, and away went the shark. All the others disappeared in an instant; but the Rais said, as soon as they smelled the blood, they would not leave the wounded one, till they had torn him to pieces. I was truly sorry for the loss of my tackle, as the two others were really liker harpoons, and not so manageable. But the Rais, whom I had studied to keep in very good humour, and had befriended in every thing, was an old harpooner in the Indian Ocean, and he pulled out from his hold a compleat apparatus. He not only had a small harpoon like my first, but better constructed. He had, likewise, several hooks with long chains and lines, and a wheel with a long hair line to it, like a small windlass, to which he equally fixed the line of the harpoon, and those of the hooks. This was a compliment he saw I took very kindly, and did not doubt it would be rewarded in the proper time.