Note 15 — Chapter VII

That such fears would not be groundless, you may readily infer from the following horrible story reported last year in the ‘Levuka Times’: “News reaches us from windward of a sad accident which has resulted in the death of upwards of twenty people. It appears that a canoe left Loma Loma with twenty-five natives on board, bound for Totoya. They were going about when a sudden squall sent the sail against the mast, capsizing the canoe. The unfortunate passengers clung to the cama, and might have escaped with consequences no worse than those which would have attended discomfort and exposure, but for the horrible fact that the capsize occurred in a locality infested with sharks. These ravenous monsters seized their victims one by one, devouring twenty-three out of the twenty-five unfortunates whose lives were thus placed at their mercy. Of the two who escaped, one is a woman; but her situation is very critical, the whole of the flesh having been taken off one leg. The matter is altogether too dreadful to admit of comment.”