rainbow-fish, for they fled within the caves, and only by
peeping in through the glass could I see them to drive the spear into
them. These slender spears were a dozen feet of light, tough wood, two
of them with single iron points two feet long, and a third fitted with
ten fine-pointed darning-needles. For small fish I used the latter,
and in thrusting into a school was pretty sure to impale one or two.

I tied the rope of pandanus-leaves about my shoulder, and pulled the
canoe along with me as a creel, tossing the fish into it as I took
them. The first seven were often of different kinds, and I did not
despise the yellow and black eels, the lobsters, the mao, or the
oysters and clams.

I would rest my spears in the canoe, and meander slowly and
meditatively over the coral terraces, repeating verses:

We wandered where the dreamy palm
Murmured above the sleepy wave;
And through the waters clear and calm
Looked down into the coral cave
Whose echoes never had been stirred
By breath of man or song of bird.

When sky and wind were propitious, and other signs familiar to the
Maori indicated that fish were plentiful in the lagoon, the whole
village dragged the net. This belonged to the chief, who for his
ownership received a percentage of the catch. The net was a hundred
and fifty feet long, and was carried out by a dozen canoes or by half
a hundred or more men and women, who let it sink to the bottom when
up to their necks in water. They then approached the shore with the
net in a half-circle, carrying it over the coral heaps, and artfully
driving into it all the fish they encountered. In shallow water others
waited with little baskets, and, scooping up the fish from the net,
emptied them into larger baskets slung from their waists. These
fish were not very big, but when larger ones were netted, marksmen
with spears waited in the shallows to kill any that leaped from the
seine. If the haul was bigger than the needs of the village, the
overplus was sent to the market in Papeete, or kept in huge anchored,
floating baskets of wicker. These fishermen had been heart and soul
in the tahatai oneone, the fish strike, and when we had poor luck,
often the best spearsman led the clan in the air taught them by the
leader whom they remembered with pride and affection:

Hayrahrooyah! I'm a boom! Hayrahrooyah! Boomagay!

They associated the air and words with the fish, and deep down in their
pr