By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories Part 10

The inhabitants of the last-named cl.u.s.ter of islands are, as I have said, the most skilled fishermen of all the Malayo-Polynesian peoples with whom it has been my fortune to have come in contact. The very poverty of their island homes--mere sandbanks covered with coconut and panda.n.u.s palms only--drives them to the sea for their food; for the Ellice Islanders, unlike their more fortunate prototypes who dwell in the forest-clad, mountainous, and fertile islands of Samoa, Tahiti, Raratonga, &c., live almost exclusively upon coconuts, the drupes of the panda.n.u.s palm, and fish. From their very infancy they look to the sea as the main source of their food-supply, either in the clear waters of the lagoon, among the breaking surf on the reef, or out in the blue depths of the ocean beyond. From morn till night the frail canoes of these semi-nude, brown-skinned, and fearless toilers of the sea may be seen by the voyager paddling swiftly over the rolling swell of the wide Pacific in chase of the _bonito_, or lying motionless upon the water, miles and miles away from the land, ground-fis.h.i.+ng with lines a hundred fathoms long. Then, as the sun dips, the flare of torches will be seen along the sandy beaches as the night-seekers of flying-fish launch their canoes and urge them through the rolling surf beyond the reef, where, for perhaps three or four hours, they will paddle slowly to and fro, just outside the white line of roaring breakers, and return to the sh.o.r.e with their tiny craft half-filled with the most beautiful and wonderful fish in the world. The Ellice Island method of catching flying-fish would take too long to explain here, much as I should like to do so; my purpose is to describe a very remarkable fish called the _palu_, in the capture of which these people are the most skilful. The catching of flying-fish, however, bears somewhat on the subject of this article, as the _palu_ will not take any other bait but a flying-fish, and therefore a supply of the former is a necessary preliminary to _palu_ fis.h.i.+ng.

Let us imagine, then, that the bait has been secured, and that a party of _palu_-fishers are ready to set out from the little island of Nanomaga, the smallest but most thickly populated of the Ellice Group.

The night must be windless and moonless, the latter condition being absolutely indispensable, although, curiously enough, the fish will take the hook on an ordinary starlight night. Time after time have I tried my luck with either a growing or a waning moon, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the natives, and never once did I get a _palu_, although other nocturnal-feeding fish bit freely enough.

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-fis.h.i.+ng--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-fis.h.i.+ng. 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.

Paddling out due westward from the lee side of the island, where the one village is situated, we would bring-to in about seventy or eighty fathoms. As I always used leaden sinkers, my companions invariably let me lower first to test the depth, as with a two or three-pound lead my comparatively thin line took but little time in running out and touching bottom. A whole flying-fish was used for one bait by the natives, it being tied on to the inner curve of the great wooden hook, whilst I cut one in half, fore-and-aft, and ran my hook through it lengthwise.

The utmost silence was always observed; and even when lighting our pipes we were always careful not to let the reflection of the flame of the match fall upon the water, on account of the sharks, which would at once be attracted to the canoe, and hover about until they were rewarded for their vigilance by seizing the first _palu_ brought to the surface.

Sometimes a hungry shark will seize the outrigger in his jaws, or get foul of it, and upset the canoe, and a capsize under such circ.u.mstances is a serious matter indeed. For this reason the canoes are never far apart from each other; if one should be attacked or disabled by a shark the others at once render a.s.sistance, and the shark is usually thrust through with a lance if he is too big to be captured and killed. All haste is then made to get away from the spot, leaving the disturber of the proceedings to be devoured by his companions, whom the scent of blood soon brings upon the scene.

With ordinary luck we would get our first _palu_ within an hour of lowering our lines. At such a great depth as eighty or ninety fathoms a bite would scarcely be felt by one of my companions on his thick, heavy, and clumsy line; but on mine it was very different, and there was hardly an occasion on which I did not secure the first fish. Like most bottom-haunting fish in very deep water the _palu_ makes but a brief fight. If he can succeed in "getting his head," he will at once rush into the coral forest amid which he lives, and endeavour to save himself by jamming his body into a cleft or chasm of rock, and let the hook be torn from his jaws, which are soft, boneless, and glutinous. Once, however, he is dragged clear of the coral he seems to lose all heart; and, although he makes an occasional spurt, he grows weaker and weaker as he is dragged toward the surface, and when lifted into the canoe is apparently lifeless, his large eyes literally standing out of his head, and his stomach distended like a balloon. So enormous is the distention of the bladder that sometimes it will protrude from the mouth, and then burst with a noise like a pistol-shot! Perhaps some of my readers will smile at this, but they could see the same thing occur with other deep-sea fish besides the _palu_. In the Caroline and Marshall Islands there is a species of grey groper which is caught in a depth ranging from one hundred to one hundred and fifty fathoms; these fish, which range up to two hundred pounds, actually burst their stomachs when brought to the surface; for the air in the cavities of the body expands on the removal of the great pressure which at such depths keeps it compressed.

Now as to the appearance of the _palu_. When first caught, and seen by the light of a lantern or torch, it is a dark, silvery grey in colour, with p.r.i.c.kly, inverted scales--like the feathers of a French fowl of a certain breed. The head is somewhat cod-shaped, with eyes quite as large as a crown-piece; the teeth are many, small, and soft, and bend to a firm pressure; and the bones in the fin and tail are so soft and flexible that they may be bent into any shape, but when dried are of the appearance and consistency of gelatine. The length of the largest _palu_ I have seen was five feet six inches, with a girth of about forty inches. This one was caught in about ninety fathoms of water; and when I opened the stomach I found it to contain five or six undigested fish, about seven inches in length, of the groper species, and for which the natives of the island had no name or knowledge of beyond the appellation _ika kehe_--"unknown fish"--that is, fish which are only seen when taken from the stomach of a deep-sea fish, or are brought to the surface or washed ash.o.r.e after some submarine disturbance.

The flesh of the _palu_ is greatly valued by the natives of the equatorial islands of the Pacific for its medicinal qualities as a laxative, whilst the oil with which it is permeated is much used as a remedy for rheumatism and similar complaints. Within half an hour of its being taken from the water the skin changes to a dead black, and the flesh a.s.sumes the appearance of whale blubber. Generally, the fish is cooked in the usual native ground-oven as quickly as possible, care being taken to wrap it closely up in the broad leaves of the _puraka_ plant--a species of gigantic taro--in order that none of the oil may be lost. Thinking that the oil, which is perfectly colourless and with scarcely any odour, might prove of value, I once "tried out" two of the largest fish taken, and obtained a gallon. This I sent to a firm of drug-merchants in Sydney; but unfortunately the vessel was lost on the pa.s.sage.

The _palu_ does not seem to have a wide habitat. In the Tonga Islands it is, I believe, very rare; and in Fiji, Samoa, and other mountainous groups throughout Polynesia the natives appear to have no knowledge of it, although they have a fish possessing the same peculiar characteristics, but of a somewhat different shape. I have fished for it without success at half a dozen places in Samoa, in New Britain, and New Ireland. But it is generally to be found about the coasts of any of the low-lying coral islands of the Union (or Tokelau) Group, the Ellice, Gilbert, Marshall, and part of the Caroline archipelagoes. The Gilbert Islanders call it _te ika ne peka_--a name that cannot well be translated into bald English, though there is a very lucid Latin equivalent.

In 1882 I took pa.s.sage from the Island of Nukufetau in the Ellice Group for the Caroline Islands. The vessel was a fine brigantine of 160 tons, and was named the _Orwell_. She was, unfortunately, commanded by an incompetent, obstinate, self-willed man, who, though a good seaman, had no meteorological knowledge and succeeded in losing the s.h.i.+p, when lying at anchor, on Peru Island, in the Gilbert Group, ten days after leaving Nukufetau, simply through disregarding the local trader's advice to put to sea. Disastrous as was the incident to me, for I lost trade goods and personal effects to the value of over a thousand pounds, and came ash.o.r.e with what I stood in--to wit, a pyjama suit--and a bag of Chili dollars, I had reason to afterwards congratulate myself from a fisherman's point of view.

Living on the island was a Swiss, Frank Voliero, whom I have before mentioned. He was an ardent deep-sea fisherman, and was on that account highly respected by the natives, who otherwise did not care for him, as he was of an exceedingly quarrelsome disposition. He was an expert _palu_ man, and he and I therefore quickly made Island _bruderschaft_.

During the three months I remained on Peru we had many fis.h.i.+ng trips, and caught not less than fifty _palu_. The largest of these was evidently a patriarch, for although he was in rather poor condition he weighed 136 lbs. and was 6 feet 10 inches in length. Another, hooked at a depth of eighty-five fathoms, was only 5 feet 2 inches, and weighed 129 lbs. Its stomach contained a small octopus with curiously stunted tentacles, almost as thick at the tips as they were at the base, but in all other respects similar to those found in shallow water upon the reefs and in the lagoon.

Both Voliero and myself tried many kinds of bait for _palu,_ believing that the native theory that the fish would only take flying-fish was wrong. We found that on Peru, any elongated fish, such as gars, silvery mullet, or young bonito, were acceptable, and that the tentacle of an octopus, after the outer skin was removed, answered just as well. Yet further southward among the Pacific Isles, flying-fish is the only bait they will take! Evidently, therefore, the _palu_, at the great depths in which it lives, is attracted by a brightly-hued fish whose habitat is on the surface of the ocean. Why this is so must be decided by ichthyologists, for there are no bright, silvery-scaled fish inhabiting the ocean at such depths as eighty or a hundred fathoms. And why is it that the _palu,_ quiescent by day, and feeding only at night, so eagerly seizes a hook baited with a flying-fish--a fish which never descends more than a few fathoms below the surface, and which the _palu_ can never possibly see except when it is lowered by human hands to, or sinks to the bottom?

Of the marvellous efficacy of the _palu_-oil in a case of acute rheumatism I can speak with knowledge. The second mate of an island-trading schooner of which I was the supercargo, was landed at Arorai, in the Line Islands, unable to move, and suffering great agony.

After two days' ma.s.saging with _palu_-oil he recovered and returned to his duties.

[Since this was written I have learned that Mr. E.R. Waite, of the Sydney Museum, has described the _palu_ as the _Ruvettus pretiosus_, "which hitherto was known only from the North Atlantic, and whose recorded range is now enormously increased. The Escolar--to give it its Atlantic name--has been taken at depths as great as three and four hundred fathoms, but can only be taken at night in September and the early part of October." I should very much like to learn how the _palu_ is taken at a depth of four hundred fathoms--eight hundred yards!]

_The Wily "Goanner"_

In the early part of the year 1899 a settler named Hardy, residing at Glenowlan, in the Rylstone district of New South Wales, about 150 miles from Sydney, lost numbers of his lambs during the lambing season.

Naturally enough, dingoes were suspected, but none were seen. Then other sheep--men began to lose lambs, and a close watch was set, with the result that iguanas, which are very numerous in this part of the country, were discovered to be the murderers of the little "baa-baa's."

The cause of this new departure in the predatory habits of the "goanner"--which hitherto had confined his evil deeds to nocturnal visits to the fowl-yards--is stated to be the extermination of the opossum, which has driven the cunning reptile to seek for another source of food. And, as before the shooting of kangaroos, wallabies, and opossums was resorted to as a means of livelihood by hundreds of bushmen who had no other employment open to them, the young of these marsupials furnished the iguana with an ample supply of food, the theory is very probably correct. Poison will be the only method of destroying or reducing the numbers of the iguana, who, robber as he is, yet has his good points, as has even the sneaking, blood-loving native cat--for both are merciless foes to snakes of all kinds; and 'tis better to have an energetic and hungry native cat and a score of wily iguanas working havoc among the tenants of your fowl-house than one brown or an equally deadly "bandy-bandy" snake within half a mile.

In that part of New South Wales in which the writer was born--one of the tidal rivers on the northern coast--both snakes and iguanas were plentiful, and a source of continual worry to the settlers.

On one occasion some boyish companions and myself set to work to build a raft for fis.h.i.+ng purposes out of some old and discarded blue gum rails which were lying along the bank of the river. Boy-like, we utterly disregarded our parents' admonition to put on our boots, and, aided by a couple of blackfellows, we moved about the long gra.s.s on our bare feet, picking up the heavy rails and carrying them on our shoulders, one by one, down to the sandy beach, where we were to lash them together.

Presently we came across a very heavy rail, about eight feet long, twelve inches in width, and two inches thick. It was no sooner up-ended than we saw half a dozen "bandy-bandies"--the smallest but most deadly of Australian snakes, not even excepting the death-adder--lying beneath!

We gave a united yell of terror and fled as the black and yellow banded reptiles--none of which were over eighteen inches in length nor thicker than a man's little finger--wriggled between our feet into the long gra.s.s around us. For some minutes we were too frightened at our escape to speak; but soon set to work to complete the raft. Presently one of the blackfellows pointed to a tall honeysuckle-tree about fifty feet away, and said with a gleeful chuckle, "Hallo, you see him that 'pfeller goanner been catch him bandy-bandy?"

Sure enough, an iguana, about three feet in length, was scurrying up the rough, ridgy bark of the honeysuckle with a "bandy-bandy" in his jaws.

He had seized the snake by its head, I imagine, for we could see the rest of its form twisting and turning about and enveloping the body of its capturer. In a few seconds we saw the iguana ascend still higher, then he disappeared with his hateful prey among the loftier branches. No doubt he enjoyed his meal.

About a year or so later I was given another instance of the "cuteness"

of the wicked "goanner." My sister (aged twelve) and myself (two years younger) were fis.h.i.+ng with bamboo rods for mullet. We were standing, one on each side, of the rocky edges of a tiny little bay on the coast near Port Macquarie (New South Wales). The background was a short, steep beach of soft, snow-white sand, fringed at the high-water margin with a dense jungle of wild apple and panda.n.u.s-trees.

The mullet bit freely, and as we swung the gleaming, bright-silvered fish out of the water on to the rocks on which we stood, we threw them up on to the beach, and left them to kick about and coat themselves with the clean, white sand--which they did in such an artistic manner that one would imagine they considered it egg and breadcrumb, and were preparing themselves to fulfil their ultimate and proper use to the _genus h.o.m.o_.

My sister had caught seven and I five, when, the sun being amids.h.i.+ps, we decided to boil the billy of tea and get something to eat; young mullet, roasted on a glowing fire of honeysuckle cobs were, we knew, very nice.

So, laying down our rods on the rocks, we walked up to the beach--just in time to see two "goanners"--one of them with a wriggling mullet in his mouth--scamper off into the bush.

A careful search revealed the harrowing fact that nine of the twelve fish were missing, and the mult.i.tudinous criss-cross tracks on the sand showed the cause of their disappearance. My sister sat down on a hollow log and wept, out of sheer vexation of spirit, while I lit a fire to boil the billy and grill the three remaining mullet. Then after we had eaten the fish and drank some tea, we concocted a plan of deadly revenge. We took four large bream-hooks, bent them on to a piece of fis.h.i.+ng-line, baited each hook with a good-sized piece of octopus (our mullet bait), and suspended the line between two saplings, about three inches above the leaf-strewn ground. Then, feeling confident of the success of our murderous device, we finished the billy of tea and went back to our fis.h.i.+ng. We caught a couple of dozen or more of fine mullet, each one weighing not less than 1-1/2 lbs.; and then the incoming tide with its sweeping seas drove us from the ledge of rocks to the beach, where we changed our bamboo rods for hand-lines with sinkers, and flung them, baited with chunks of mullet, out into the breaking surf for sea-bream. By four in the afternoon we had caught more fish than we could well carry home, five miles away; and after stringing the mullet and bream through the gills with a strip of supple-jack cane, we went up the beach to our camp for the billy can and basket.

And then we saw a sight that struck terror into our guilty souls--a _Danse Macabre_ of three writhing black and yellow, long-tailed "goanners," twisting, turning and las.h.i.+ng their sinuous and scaly tails in agony as they sought to free their widely-opened jaws from the cruel hooks. One had two hooks in his mouth. He was the quietest of the lot, as he had less purchase than the other two upon the ground, and with one hook in his lower and one in his upper jaw, glared upwards at us in his torture and smote his sides with his long, thin tail.

"Oh, you wicked, wicked boy!" said my partner in guilt--at once s.h.i.+fting the responsibility of the whole affair upon me--"you ought to be ashamed of yourself for doing such a thing! You know well enough that we should never hurt a poor, harmless iguana. Oh, _do_ take those horrible hooks out of the poor things' mouths and let them go, you wicked, cruel boy!"

With my heart in my mouth I crept round through the scrub, knife in hand.

"Go on, you horrible, horrible, coward!" screamed my sister; "one would think that the poor things were alligators or sharks. Oh, my goodness, if you're so frightened, I'll come and do it myself." With that she clambered up into the branches of a panda.n.u.s-tree and looked at me excitedly, mingled with considerable contempt and much fear.

Being quite wise enough not to attempt to take the hooks out of the "goanners'" mouths, I cut the two ends of the line to which they hung.

They instantly sought refuge on the tree trunks around them; but as each "goanner" selected his individual tree, and as they were still connected to each other by the line and the hooks in their jaws, their attempts to reach a higher plane was a failure. So they fell to upon one another savagely.

"Come away, you wicked, thoughtless boy," said my sister, weepingly. "I shall never come out with you again; you cruel thing."

Then, overcoming my fear, I valiantly advanced, and gingerly extending my arm, cut the tangled-up fis.h.i.+ng line in a dozen places; and with my bamboo fis.h.i.+ng-rod disintegrated the combatants. They stood for a few seconds, panting and open-mouthed, and then, with the hooks still fast in their jaws, scurried away into the scrub.

_The Ta~nifa of Samoa_

Many years ago, at the close of an intensely hot day, I set out from Apia, the princ.i.p.al port of Samoa, to walk to a village named Laulii, a few miles along the coast. Pa.s.sing through the semi-Europeanised town of Matautu, I emerged out upon the open beach. I was bound on a pigeon-shooting trip to the mountains, but intended sleeping that night at Laulii with some native friends who were to accompany me. With me was a young Manhiki half-caste named Allan Strickland; he was about twenty-two years of age and one of the most perfect specimens of athletic manhood in the South Pacific.[15] For six months we had been business partners and comrades in a small cutter in which we traded between Apia and Sava'ii--the largest island of the Samoan group; and now after some months of toil we were taking a week's holiday together, and enjoying ourselves greatly, although at the time (1873) the country was in the throes of an internecine war.

A walk of a mile brought us to the mouth of the Vaivasa River, a small stream flowing into the sea from the littoral on our right. The tide was high and we therefore hailed a picket who were stationed in the trenches on the opposite bank and asked them in a jocular manner not to fire at us while we were wading across. To our surprise, for we were both well known to and on very friendly terms with the contending parties, half a dozen of them sprang up and excitedly bade us not to attempt to cross.

"Go further up the bank and cross to our _olo_ (lines) in a canoe,"

added a young Manono chief whose family I knew well, "there is a _ta~nifa_ about. We saw it last night."

That was quite enough for us--for the name _Ta~nifa_ sent a cold chill down our backs. We turned to the right, and after walking a quarter of a mile came to a hut on the bank at a spot regarded as neutral ground.

Here we found some women and children and a canoe, and in less than five minutes we were landed on the other side, the women chorusing the dreadful fate that would have befallen us had we attempted to cross at the mouth of the river.

"_E lima gafa le umi!_" ("'Tis five fathoms long!") cried one old dame.

"And a fathom wide at the shoulders," said another bare-bosomed lady, with a shudder. "It hath come to the mouth of the Vaivasa because it hath smelt the blood of the three men who were killed in the river here two days ago."

"We'll hear the true yarn presently," said my companion as we walked down the left-hand bank of the river. "There must be a _ta~nifa_ cruising about, or else those Manono fellows wouldn't have been so scared at us wanting to cross."