The tackle used by the natives is made of coconut cinnet, four or eight-stranded, of great strength, and capable of holding a fifteen-foot shark should one of these prowlers seize the bait.  The hook is made of wood—­in fact, the same as is used for shark-fishing—­about one inch and a half in diameter, fourteen inches in the shank, with a natural curve; the barb, or rather that which answers the purpose of a barb, being supplied by a small piece lashed horizontally across the top of the end of the curve.  These peculiar wooden hooks are grown; the roots of a tree called ngiia, whose wood is of great toughness, are watched when they protrude from a bank, and trained into the desired shape; specimens of these hooks may be seen in almost any ethnographical museum.  To sink the line, coral stones of three or four pounds weight are used, attached by a very thin piece of cinnet or bark, which, when the fish is struck, is always broken by its struggles, and falls off, thus releasing the line from an unnecessary weight.  It is no light task hauling in a thick, heavy line, hanging straight up and down for a length of from seventy-five to a hundred fathoms or more!

Each canoe is manned by four men, only two of whom usually fish, the other two, one at the bow and the other at the stern, being employed in keeping the little craft in a stationary position with their paddles.  If, however, there is not much current all four lower their lines, one man working his paddle with one hand so as to keep from drifting.  My usual companions were the resident native teacher and two stalwart young natives of the island—­Tulu’ao and Muli’ao; and I may here indulge in a little vanity when I say that my success as a palu-fisher was regarded as something phenomenal, only one other white man in the group, a trader on the atoll of Funafuti, having ever caught a palu, or, in fact, tried to catch one.  But then I had such beautiful tackle that even the most skilled native fisherman had no chance when competing with me.  My lines were of twenty-seven-strand white American cotton, as thick as a small goose-quill, and easily handled, never tangling or twisting like the native cinnet; and my hooks were the admiration and envy of all who saw them.  They were of the “flatted” Kirby type, eyed, but with a curve in the shank, which was five inches in length, and as thick as a lead-pencil.  I had bought these in Sydney, and during the voyage down had rigged them with snoodings of the very best seizing wire, intending to use them for shark-fishing.  I had smaller ones down to three inches, but always preferred using the largest size, as the palu has a large mouth, and it is a difficult matter in a small canoe on a dark night to free a hook embedded in the gullet of a fish which is awkward to handle even when exhausted, and weighing as much as sixty or seventy pounds; while I also knew that any unusual noise or commotion would be almost sure to attract some of those most dangerous of all night-prowlers of the Pacific, the deep-water blue shark.