hauled it in, and then, oh woe! the hook, our
prized, our beautiful hook, was gone! and with it two feet of the chain,
which had parted at the centre swivel. That particular _ta~nifa_ was
seen no more.

Nearly two months later, two _ta~nifa_ of a much larger size, appeared
at the mouth of the Vaivasa. Several of the white residents tried, night
after night, to hook them, but the monsters refused to look at the
baits. Then appeared on the scene an old one-eyed Malay named 'Reo, who
asserted he could kill them easily. The way in which he set to work was
described to me by the natives who witnessed the operations. Taking a
piece of green bamboo, about four feet in length, he split from it two
strips each an inch wide. The ends of these he then, after charring the
points, sharpened carefully; then by great pressure he coiled them up
into as small a compass as possible, keeping the whole in position by
sewing the coil up in the fresh skin of a fish known as the _isuumu
moana_--a species of the "leather-jacket." Then he asked to be provided
with two dogs. A couple of curs were soon provided, killed, and the
viscera removed. The coils of bamboo were then placed in the vacancy and
the skin of the bellies stitched up with small wooden skewers. That
completed the preparation of the baits.

As soon as the two sharks made their appearance, one of the dead dogs
was thrown into the water. It was quickly swallowed. Then the second
followed, and was also seized by the other _ta~nifa_. The creatures
cruised about for some hours, then went off, as the tide began to fall.

On the following evening they did not turn up, nor on the next; but the
Malay insisted that within four or five days both would be dead. As soon
as the dogs were digested, he said, the thin fish-skin would follow, the
bamboo coil would fly apart, and the sharpened ends penetrate not only
the sharks' intestines, but protrude through the outer skin as well.

Quite a week afterwards, during which time neither of the _ta~nifa_
had been seen alive, the smaller of the two was found dead on the beach
at Vailele Plantation, about four miles from the Vaivasa. It was
examined by numbers of people, and presented an extremely interesting
sight; one end of the bamboo spring was protruding over a foot from the
belly, which was so cut and lacerated by the agonised efforts of the
monster to free itself from the instrument of torture, that much of the
intestines was gone.

That th