The schooner was at this time within a few miles of a small village on Alofa, named Mua, and presently a boat manned by natives boarded us to sell yams, taro, pineapples, and bananas, all of which we bought from them in exchange for the sharks’ livers and some huge pieces of flesh weighing two or three hundred pounds.  These people (who resemble the Samoans in appearance and language) were much impressed and terrified when they saw the pilot fish which had been caught, and told our crew that ours would be an unlucky ship—­that we had done a dangerous and foolish thing.  Their feeling on the subject was strong; for when I asked them if they would take two or three of the fish on shore to Father Herve, one of the French priests living on Fotuna, who was an old friend, they started back in mingled terror and indignation, and absolutely declined to even touch them.  Taking one of the pilot fish up I held it by the head between my forefinger and thumb and asked the natives if they did not consider it good to look at.

“True,” replied a fine, stalwart young fellow, speaking in Samoan, “it is good to look at,” and then he added gravely, “Talofa lava ia te outou i le vaa nei, ua lata mai ne aso malaia ma le tiga|” ("Alas for all you people on this ship, there is a day of disaster and sorrow near you").

I tried to ascertain the cause of their terror, but could only elicit the statement that to kill a pilot fish meant direful misfortune.  No sensible man, they asserted, would do such a senseless and saua (cruel) thing, and to eat one was an abomination unutterable.

As soon as our visitors had left I hurried to make a closer examination of our prizes before the cook took possession of them.  Of the eleven, only one was over a foot in length, the rest ranged from five to ten inches.  The beautiful dark blue of the head and along the back, so noticeable when first caught, had now lost its brilliancy, and the four wide vertical black stripes on the sides had also become dulled, although the silvery belly was still as bright as a new dollar.  The eyes were rather large for such a small fish, and all the fins were blue-black, with a narrow white line running along the edges.  Their appearance even an hour after death was very handsome, and in shape they were much like a very plump trout.  In the stomachs of some we found small flying squid, little shrimps, and other Crustacea.

Our Manila-man cook, although not a genius, certainly knew how to fry fish, and that morning we had for breakfast some of Jack Shark’s pilots—­the most delicately-flavoured deep-sea fish I have ever tasted—­except, perhaps, that wonderful and beautiful creature, the flying-fish.

The “Palu” of the Equatorial Pacific

During a residence of half a lifetime among the various island-groups of the North-western and South Pacific, I devoted much of my spare time—­and I had plenty of it occasionally—­to deep-sea fishing, my tutors being the natives of the Caroline, Marshall, Gilbert, and Ellice Groups.