me. Before five seconds had passed my
brown-skinned comrade laughed as his thin line tautened out suddenly,
and in another instant he swung out a quivering streak of shining blue
and silver, and deftly caught it with his left hand; almost at the
same moment my rod was strained hard by a larger fish, which darted in
towards the bank.

"First to thee, Nalik; but biggest to the _rebelli_"* cried old Sru,
as with some difficulty--for my rod was too slight for such a fish--I
landed a lovely four-pounder on the grass.

* White man.

Nalik laughed again, and before I had cleared my hook from the jaw of
my prize he had taken another and then a third, catching each one in his
left hand with incredible swiftness and throwing them to the boy. The
women and girls on the opposite bank laughed and chaffed me, and urged
me to hasten, or Nalik would catch five ere I landed another. But the
_rebelli_ took no heed of their merriment, for he was quite content to
let a few minutes go whilst he examined the glistening beauty which lay
quivering and gasping on the sward. It was nearly eighteen inches in
length, its back from the tip of the upper jaw to the tail a brilliant
dark blue flecked with tiny specks of red, the sides a burnished silver,
changing, as the belly was reached, to a glistening white. The pectoral
and lower fins were a pale blue, flecked with somewhat larger spots
of brighter red than those on the back, and the tail showed the same
colouring. In shape it was much like a grayling, particularly about
the head; and altogether a more beautiful fresh-water fish I have never
seen.

We fished for an hour or more, and caught three or four dozen of this
particular fish as well as eight or nine dark-scaled, stodgy bream,
which haunted the centre of the pool where the water was deep. Then as
the sun grew fiercer they ceased to bite, and we ceased to tempt them;
so we lay down and rested and smoked, whilst the women and children made
a ground-oven and prepared some of the fish for cooking. Putting aside
the largest--which was reserved for the old chief and myself--Nalik's
kindly, gentle-voiced wife, watched the children roll each fish up in
a wrapper of green coconut leaf and lay them carefully upon the glowing
bed of stones in the oven, together with some scores of long, slender
green bananas, to serve as a vegetable in place of taro or yams, which
would take a much longer time to cook. On the top of all was placed the
large