r (over a hundred) began loosening and tearing
away portions of the overhanging bank, and toppling them over into
the stream; this they accomplished very dexterously by means of heavy,
pointed sticks. The work was carried out with an astounding clamour,
those natives in the water diving to the bottom and breaking up the
fallen earth still further till each pool became of the colour and
something of the consistency of green pea-soup. Hundreds of fish soon
rose gasping to the surface, and these were at once seized and thrown
out upon the banks, where a number of young picaninnies darted upon them
to save them being devoured by a swarm of mongrel dogs, which lent
an added interest to the proceedings by their incessant yelping and
snapping. As the slowly running current carried the suffocating and
helpless fish down-stream the hideous noise increased, for the shallow
stretch in front of the dam was soon covered with them--bream, and the
so-called "grayling," perch, eels, and some very large cat-fish. The
latter, which I have mentioned on a previous page, is one of the
most peculiar-looking but undoubtedly the best flavoured of all the
Queensland fresh-water fishes; it is scaleless, tail-less, blue-grey
in colour, and has a long dorsal spike, like the salt-water
"leather-jacket." (A scratch from this spike is always dangerous, as
it produces intense pain, and often causes blood-poisoning.) Altogether
over a thousand fish must have been taken, and I gazed at the
destruction with a feeling of anger, for these pools had afforded my
mining mates and myself excellent sport, and a very welcome change of
diet from the eternal beef and damper. But, a few days later, after our
black friends had wandered off to other pastures, I was delighted to
find that there were still plenty of fish in the pools.

* * * * *

Early in the "seventies" I was shipwrecked with the once notorious
Captain "Bully" Hayes, on Kusaie (Strong's Island), the eastern outlier
of the Caroline Islands on the North Pacific, and lived there for twelve
happy months, and here I saw for the first time the method of fish
stupefaction employed by the interesting and kindly-natured people of
this beautiful spot.

I had previously seen, in Eastern Polynesia, the natives drugging fish
by using the pounded nuts of the _futu_ tree (_Barringtonia speciosa_),
and one day as I was walking with a native friend along the beach near
the village in which I lived, I picked up a _f