omain. An old sea-captain tells the following story:

"Being in the Gulf of Paria, in the ship's cutter, I fell in with a
Spanish canoe, manned by two men, who were in great distress, and who
requested me to save their lines and canoe, with which request I
immediately complied, and going alongside for that purpose, I discovered
that they had got a large saw-fish entangled in their turtle net. It was
towing them out to sea, and but for my assistance they must have lost
either their canoe or their net, or perhaps both, and these were their
only means of subsistence. Having only two boys with me at the time in
the boat, I desired the fishermen to cut the fish away, which they
refused to do. I then took the bight of the net from them, and with the
joint endeavors of themselves and my boat's crew we succeeded in hauling
up the net, and to our astonishment, after great exertions, we raised
about eight feet of the saw of the fish above the surface of the sea. It
was a fortunate circumstance that the fish came up with his belly toward
the boat, or he would have cut it in two.

"I had abandoned all idea of taking the fish, until, by great good luck,
it made toward the land, when I made another attempt, and having about
three hundred feet of rope in the boat, we succeeded in making a running
bow-line knot round the saw, and this we fortunately made fast on shore.
When the fish found itself secured, it plunged so violently that I could
not prevail on any one to go near it: the appearance it presented was
truly awful. I immediately went alongside the Lima packet, Captain
Singleton, and got the assistance of all his ship's crew. By the time
they arrived the fish was less violent. We hauled upon the net again, in
which it was still entangled, and got another three hundred feet of line
made fast to the saw, and attempted to haul it toward the shore; but
although mustering _thirty hands_, we could not move it an inch. By this
time the negroes belonging to a neighboring estate came flocking to our
assistance, making together about one hundred in number, with the
Spaniards. We then hauled on both ropes nearly all day before the fish
became exhausted. On endeavoring to raise the monster it became most
desperate, sweeping with its saw from side to side, so that we were
compelled to get strong ropes to prevent it from cutting us to pieces.
After that one of the Spaniards got on its back, and at great risk cut
through the joint of the tail,