Not possessing a boat, we fished from a canoe—­a light, but strong and beautifully constructed craft, with “whalebacks” fore and aft to keep it from being swamped by seas when facing or running from a surf.  The outrigger was formed of a very light wood, called pua, about fourteen inches in circumference.  With the teacher and myself there usually went with us a third man, whose duty it was to keep the canoe head to wind, for anchoring in deep water in such a tiny craft was out of the question, as well as dangerous, should a heavy fish or a shark get foul of the outrigger.  Capsizes in the daytime we did not mind, but at night numbers of grey sharks were always cruising around, and they were then especially savage and daring.

Leaving the pretty little village, which was embowered in a palm grove on the lee side of the island, we would, if intending to fish on the Tia Kau, make a start before dawn, remain there till the canoe was loaded to her raised gunwale pieces with the weight of fish, and then return.  Night fishing on the Tia Kau by a single canoe was forbidden by the kaupule (head men) as being too dangerous on account of the sharks, and so usually from ten to twenty canoes set out together.  If one did come to grief through being swamped, or capsized by having the outrigger fouled by a shark, there was always assistance near at hand, and it rarely happened that any of the crew were bitten.  In 1872, however, a fearful tragedy occurred on the Tia Kau, when a party of seventy natives—­men, women, and children—­who were crossing to the neighbouring Island of Nanomea, were attacked by sharks when overtaken on the reef by a squall at night.  Only two escaped to tell the tale.[14]

If, however, we meant to try for takuo, a huge variety of the mackerel-tribe, or lahe’u, a magnificent bream-shaped fish, we had no need to go so far as the dangerous Tia Kau; three or four cable-lengths from the beach, and right in front of the village, we could lie in water as smooth as glass, and seventy fathoms in depth.  Our bait was invariably flying-fish, freshly caught, or the tentacles of an octopus.  My lines were of white American cotton, and I generally used two hooks, one below and one above the sinker, both baited with a whole flying-fish, while my companions preferred wooden or iron hooks, of their own manufacture, and lines made from hibiscus bark or coconut fibre.

I shall always remember with pleasure my first lahe’u.  I was accompanied by the native teacher alone, and we paddled off from the village just after evening service, and brought to about a quarter of a mile outside the reef.  The rest of the islanders had gone round in their canoes to the weather side of the little island to fish for takuo, for we were expecting a malaga, or party of visitors from the Island of Nukufetau in a day or two, and unusual supplies of fish had to be obtained, to sustain, not only the island’s record as the fishing