to begin fishing.

Each man had baited his hook with the third of an _atuli_--at this stage
of their life about four inches long and exactly the colour and shape of
a young mackerel--and within five minutes after "_Tu'u tau kafa_!"
("Let go lines!") had been called out several of the canoes around our
own began to pull up fish--four to six pounders. I was fishing with a
white cotton line, with two hooks, and Marèko with the usual native
gear--a hand-made line of hibiscus bark with a barbless hook made from a
long wire nail, with its point ground fine and well-curved inwards. We
both struck fish at the same moment, and I knew by the zigzag pull that
I had two. Up they came together--three spotted beauties about eighteen
inches in length and weighing over 5 lbs. each. Then I found the
advantage of the native style of hook; Marèko simply put his left thumb
and forefinger into the fish's eye, had his hook free in a moment, had
baited, lowered again and was pulling up another before I had succeeded
in freeing even my first hook which was firmly fixed in the fish's
gullet, out of sight. I soon put myself on a more even footing by
cutting off the small one and a half inch hooks I had been using and
bending on two thick and long-shanked four inchers. These answered
beautifully, as although the barbs caused me some trouble, their stout
shanks afforded a good grip and leverage when extracting them from the
hard and keen-toothed jaws of the struggling fish. Then, too, I had
another advantage over my companions; I was wearing a pair of seaboots
which effectually protected my feet from either the terrible fins or the
teeth of the fish in the bottom of the canoe.

I had caught my eighth fish, when an outcry came from a canoe near us,
as a young man who was seated on the for'ard thwart rose to his feet and
began hauling in his line, which was standing straight up and down, taut