d as a block of mahogany, which
it resembled--and this too after the beef had been boiled for hours in
the cook's coppers!

The Captain ordered the cook to cut off the fins and prepare them for
his own particular use after the Chinese fashion, the almond-eyed
Celestials esteeming them as an especial dainty. Then he carved two long
cutlets from the back, which he also ordered to be cooked for his
supper. The rest of the huge carcass he surrendered to the crew. The
boatswain cut out the heart of the shark, which was still palpitating,
and placed it in a tin dish. He told me it would continue to beat till
sundown, when it would suddenly become motionless. I did not believe
him, and told him so, but he prophesied truly. I watched that throbbing
heart pretty closely for several hours. It beat firmly and regularly
until the upper rim of the sun disappeared beneath the western horizon.
Then it made a sudden stop, and became limp and pulseless. This may seem
a yarn fit only to tell to the marines, but it is gospel truth on the
word of a sailor. I have told the story to scientific men, but they have
pooh-poohed at it, and declared it to have been impossible. But then it
was not to be supposed that they would know anything about sharks,
having got all their knowledge from musty books instead of from the sea
itself. Old sailors who have crossed the line will, however, corroborate
me as to this phenomenon.

The carpenter claimed the backbone, which he fashioned into a quite
handsome walking-stick by impaling the finest sections of the spine on a
slender bar of steel. And I may as well tell you that the "shark
walking-canes" so frequently offered in South Street by impostors
disguised as hardy mariners are as a rule made of sections of ox tails,
prepared in a very cunning manner, and well calculated to deceive the
inexperienced.

The Captain gave me the jaws, which were immense. I boiled them all
night in a big kettle until all the flesh fell off them and they shone
like ivory. I preserved them for many years as a souvenir of my first
deep-sea voyage and of the first shark I had seen hooked.

The tail was nailed in triumph to the end of the flying jib-boom,
replacing one of much smaller dimensions that had long braved both wind
and weather. Sailors think that a shark's tail at the extreme end of a
ship's "nose-pole" is the harbinger of good luck. While these things
were being done the rest of the shark's carcass was thrown overb