I confess I felt a hatred for sharks, and while at Cape Lopez I killed as many of them as I could. Almost every day you could have seen me in a canoe near the shore, throwing my shark-hook into the sea, and after awhile making for the beach, and calling all the men together to pull with all our might, and draw in my victim. One day I took a blue-skin shark. He was a tremendous fellow. I thought we should never be able to haul him ashore, or that the line would part. It took us an hour before we saw him safely on the beach. Now and then I thought he would get the better of us, and that we should have to let the line go, or be pulled into the water. At last he came right up on the beach, and a great shout of victory welcomed him. Aboko was ready for him, and with a powerful axe he gave him a tremendous blow that cut off his tail. Then we smashed his head, and cut his body into several pieces, which quivered to and fro for some time. In his stomach we found a great number of fish. If I remember correctly, he had six or seven rows of teeth, and such ugly teeth! I pity the poor man whose leg should unfortunately get caught between them.
Hardly a day passed that I did not catch some sharks, and then for a bait I used to put on my hook a piece of their own flesh, which, like the cannibals, they ate apparently without any remorse.
There is another species of shark, of a grey leaden colour, which is shorter and thicker than the blue-skin shark; it has a broader head, and a much wider mouth, and is far more voracious. This species is the most common. It will attack a man in shallow water. I remember a poor boy who was going to his canoe, where the water was not up to his knees, when suddenly, just as he was going to get in, he was seized by his leg and dragged into the water by one of these terrible sharks, which had probably been for some time swimming along the beach watching for prey. In that country it is dangerous to bathe in the sea, and I did not attempt to do so. So much for the sharks.
Every day, on the muddy banks near the mouth of the Fetich river, we hauled in with our nets a great quantity of mullets and other fish. These were split open, cleaned, salted, dried, and smoked, and then packed away in baskets.