As soon as the sucker has attached itself to the turtle, a slight pull is given and the startled turtle makes a rush, the line being eased out smartly.  Then sport of the kind that a salmon-fisher enjoys when he has hooked a 40-pounder begins.  The turtle goes as he pleases; but when he begins to tire, he finds that there is a certain check upon him—­slow, steady, never-ceasing.  After ten minutes or so a critical phase of the sport occurs.  The turtle bobs up to the surface for a gulp of air, and should he catch sight of the occupants of the canoe, his start and sudden descent may result in such a severe tug that the sucker is divorced.  But the blacks watch, and in their experience judge to a nicety when and where the turtle may rise; telegrams along the line from the sucker give precise information.  They crouch low on their knees in the canoe, as the game emerges, with half-shut eyes and dives again without having ascertained the cause of the trifling annoyance to which he is being subjected.  The line is shortened up.  Perhaps the turtle sulks among the rocks and coral, and endeavours to free himself from the sucker by rubbing against the boulders.  Knowing all the wiles and manoeuvres, the blacks play the game accordingly, and hour after hour may pass, they giving and taking line with fine skill and the utmost patience.  The turtle has become accustomed to the encumbrance, and visits the surface oftener for air.  One of the harpoons is raised, and as the turtle gleams grey, a couple of fathoms or so under the water, the canoe is smartly paddled towards the spot whence it will emerge, and before it can get a mouthful of air the barbed point, with a strong line attached, is sticking a couple of inches deep in its shoulder.

There is a mad splash—­a little maelstrom of foam and ripples, the line runs out to its full length, and the canoe careers about, accurately steered by the aft man, in the erratic course of the wounded creature.  As it tires, the heavy haft of the harpoon secured by the half hitches round the thin end being a considerable drag, the line is shortened up, but too much trust is not placed on a single line; some time may pass before the canoe is brought within striking distance again.  When that moment arrives, a second harpoon is sent into the flesh below the edge of the carapace at the rear.  Unable to break away, the turtle is hauled close alongside the canoe, secured by the flippers and towed ashore.  I have known blacks, after harpooning a turtle, to be towed 6 miles out to sea before it came their turn to do the towing.

How they accomplish the feat of securing a turtle that may weigh a couple of hundredweight from a frail bark canoe, in which a white man can scarcely sit and preserve his balance, is astonishing.  In a lively sea the blacks sit back, tilting up the stem to meet the coming wave, and then put their weight forward to ease it down, paddling, manoeuvring with the line and baling all the time.  The mere paddling about in the canoe is a feat beyond the dexterity of an ordinary man.