utu_ nut lying on the
sand, and remarked that in the islands to the far south the people used
it to drug fish.

Kusis laughed. "_Futu_ is good, but we of Kusaie do not use it--we have
_oap_ which is stronger and better. Come, I will show you some _oap_
growing, and to-morrow you shall see how good it is."

Turning off to our right, we passed through a grove of screw-pines, and
then came to the foot ot the high mountain range traversing the island,
where vine and creeper and dense jungle undergrowth struggled for light
and sunshine under the dark shade of giant trees, whose thick leafy
branches, a hundred feet above, were rustling to the wind. Here,
growing in the rich, red soil, was a cluster of _oap_--a thin-stemmed,
dark-green-leaved plant about three feet in height. Kusis pulled one by
the roots, and twisted it round and round his left hand; a thick, white
and sticky juice exuded from the bark.

"It 'sickens' the fish very quickly," he said, "quicker than the _futu_
nut. If much of it be bruised and thrown into the water, it kills the
largest fish very soon, and even turtles will 'sicken.' It is very
strong."

I asked him how the people of Kusaie first became acquainted with the
properties of the plant. He shook his head.

"I do not know. God made it to grow here in Kusaie in the days that were
dark" (heathenism) "and when we were a young people. A wise man from
Germany was here ten years ago, and he told us that the people of
Ponape, far to the west, use the _oap_ even as we use it, but that in
Ponape the plant grows larger and is more juicy than it is here."*

* The "wise man from Germany," I ascertained a year or two
afterwards, was the well-known J. S. Kubary, a gentleman
who, although engaged in trading pursuits, yet enriched
science by his writings on his discoveries in Micronesia.

Early on the following morning, when the tide was falling, and the
jagged pinnacles of coral rock began to show on the barrier reef
opposite the village, the entire population--about sixty all told--were
awaiting Kusis and myself outside his house. The men carried small,
unbarbed fish-spears, the women and children baskets and bundles of
_oap_.

From the village to the reef was a distance of two miles, which we soon
covered by smart paddling in a dozen or more canoes; for had we delayed
we should, through the falling tide, have been obliged to leave our
stranded crafts on the sand, half-way, and walk th