We speared a dozen kinds of fish, specially the cuttlefish and sunfish, the latter more for fun and practice than food.  They are huge masses, these pig-like, tailless clowns among the graceful families of the ocean, with their small mouths and clumsy-looking bodies, but they made a fine target at which to launch harpoon or spear from the dancing bow of a canoe.  Keeping one’s balance is the finest art of the Marquesan fisherman, and he will stand firm while the boat rises and falls, rolls and pitches, his body swaying and balancing with the nice adjustment that is second nature to him.  It is an art that should be learned in childhood.  Many were the splashes into the salt sea that fell to my lot as I practised it, one moment standing alert with poised spear in the sunlight, the next overwhelmed with the green water, and striking out on the surface again amid the joyous, unridiculing laughter of my merry companions.

Wearying of the spear, we trolled for swordfish with hook and line, or used the baitless hook to entice the sportful albicore, or dolphin, whose curving black bodies splashed the sea about us.  A piece of mother-of-pearl about six inches long and three-quarters of an inch wide was the lure for him.  Carefully cut and polished to resemble the body of a fish, there was attached to it on the concave side a barb of shell or bone about an inch or an inch and a half in length, fastened by faufee fiber, with a few hog’s bristles inserted.  The line was drove through the hole where the barb was fastened and, being braided along the inner side of the pearl shank, was tied again at the top, forming a chord to the arch.  Thus when the beguiled dolphin took the hook and strained the line, he secured himself more firmly on the barb.

This is the best fish-hook, as it is perhaps the oldest, ever invented, and I have found it in many parts of the South Seas, but never more artfully made than here on Hanavave.  It needs no bait, and is a fascinating sight for the big fish, who hardly ever discover the fraud until too late.

The line was attached to a bamboo cane about fifteen feet long, and standing in the stern of the canoe, I handled this rod, allowing the hook to touch the water, but not to sink.  Behind me my companions, in their red and yellow pareus, pushed the boat through the water with gentle strokes of their oars.  When I saw a fish approaching, they became active, the canoe raced across the sparkling sea, and the hook, as it skimmed along the surface, looked for all the world like a flying fish, the bristles simulating the tail.  Soon the hastening dolphin fell upon it, and then became the tug-of-war, bamboo pole straining and bending, the line now taut, now relaxing, as the fish lunged, and the paddlers watching with cries of excitement until he was hauled over the side, wet and flopping, a feast for half a dozen.

One never-to-be-forgotten afternoon we ran unexpectedly upon a whole school of dolphins a few miles outside the bay, and before the sun sank I had brought from the sea twenty-six large fish.  Some of these were magnificent food-fish, weighing 150 to 200 pounds.  We had to send for two canoes to help bring in this miraculous draught, and all the population of the valley rejoiced in the supply of fresh and appetizing food.