For fully five minutes the canoe went flying over the water, and I continued to haul in line fathom by fathom, until I caught sight of, deep down in the water right ahead, a great phosphorescent boil and bubble.  Then the pace began to slacken, as the gallant fighter began to turn from side to side, shaking his head and making futile breaks from port to starboard.  Bidding me come amidships with the line, Ioane took in his paddle, and picked up the harpoon which we always carried on the outrigger platform in case of meeting a turtle.  Nearer and nearer came the great fish, till, with a splash of phosphorescent light and spray, he came to the surface, beating the water with his forked and bony tail, and still trying to get a chance for another downward run.  Then Ioane, waiting his opportunity, sent the iron clean through him from side to side, and I sat down and watched, with a thrill of satisfaction and a sigh of relief, his final flurry.  In a few minutes we hauled him alongside, drew the harpoon, and with some difficulty managed to get him over the side and lower him into the bottom of the canoe amidships, where he lay fore and aft, his curved back standing up nearly a foot and a half above the raised gunwale.  Although not above four feet in length, he was nearly three in depth, and about sixteen inches thick at the shoulder—­a truly noble fish.

“We have done well,” said the teacher, with a pleased laugh, as he hauled in his own line and dropped a 6-lb. utu into the canoe.  “There will be much talk over this to-morrow, for these people here are very conceited, and think that no one but themselves can catch lahe’u and pala.  They will know better now, when they see this one.”

We returned to the shore within two hours from the time we left, with my lahe’u, an utu, and five or six salmon-like fish called tau-tau, all nocturnal feeders, and all highly thought of by the natives, especially the latter.  The lahe’u we hung up under the missionary’s verandah, and at daylight I had the intense satisfaction of seeing a crowd of natives surrounding it, and of hearing their flattering allusions to myself as a papalagi masani tonu futi ika—­a white man who really could fish like a native.

On a Tidal River

The English visitor to the Eastern Colonies of Australia who is in search of sport with either rod or hand line can always obtain excellent fishing in the summer months even in such traffic-disturbed harbours as Sydney, Newcastle, and other ports; but on the tidal rivers of the eastern and southern seaboard he can, every day, catch more fish than he can carry during seven months of the year.  In the true winter months deep sea fishing is not much favoured, except during the prevalence of westerly winds, when, for days at a time, the Pacific is as smooth as a lake; but in the rivers, from Mallacoota Inlet, which is a few miles over the Victorian boundary, to the Tweed River on