ep, with a flattened summit of about fifty acres in extent,
rising to within five fathoms of the surface of the sea. This spot is
the resort of incredible numbers of fish, both deep-sea haunting and
surface swimming. Some of the latter, such as the _pala_ (not the
_palu_)--a long, scaleless, beautifully-formed fish, with a head of bony
plates and teeth like a rip-saw--are of great size, and afford splendid
sport, as they are game fighters and almost as powerful as a porpoise.
They run to over 100 lbs., and yet are by no means a coarse fish. In the
shallow water on the top of this mountain reef there are some eight or
nine varieties of rock cod, none of which were of any great size; but
far below, at a depth of from fifty to seventy fathoms, there were some
truly monstrous fish of this species, and I and my missionary friend had
the luck to catch the four largest ever taken--221 lbs., 208 lbs., 118
lbs., and 111 lbs. I had caught when fishing for schnapper, in thirty
fathoms off Camden Haven, on the coast of New South Wales, a mottled
black and grey rock cod, which weighed 83 lbs., and was assured by the
Sydney Museum authorities that such a weight for a rock cod was rare in
that part of the Pacific, but that _beche-de-mer_ fishermen on the Great
Barrier Reef had occasionally captured fish of the same variety of
double that size and weight.

Not possessing a boat, we fished from a canoe--a light, but strong and
beautifully constructed craft, with "whalebacks" fore and aft to keep it
from being swamped by seas when facing or running from a surf. The
outrigger was formed of a very light wood, called _pua_, about fourteen
inches in circumference. With the teacher and myself there usually went
with us a third man, whose duty it was to keep the canoe head to wind,
for anchoring in deep water in such a tiny craft was out of the
question, as well as dangerous, should a heavy fish or a shark get foul
of the outrigger. Capsizes in the daytime we did not mind, but at night
numbers of grey sharks were always cruising around, and they were then
especially savage and daring.

Leaving the pretty little village, which was embowered in a palm grove
on the lee side of the island, we would, if intending to fish on the Tia
Kau, make a start before dawn, remain there till the canoe was loaded to
her raised gunwale pieces with the weight of fish, and then return.
Night fishing on the Tia Kau by a single canoe was forbidden by the
_kaupule_