er would then take a turn; and so it would go on, turn and turn
about, until one of the unfortunate, stoical creatures fell bleeding and
half-senseless to the earth. The thing was magnificently simple. The
woman who kept her senses longest, and remained on her legs to the end,
was the victor. There was no kind of ill-feeling after these
extraordinary combats, and the women would even dress one another's
wounds.

I now come to an event of very great importance in my life. Elsewhere I
have spoken of my _penchant_ for dugong hunting. Well, one day this
sport effectually put an end to all my prospects of reaching civilisation
across the sea. I went forth one morning, accompanied by my
ever-faithful Yamba and the usual admiring crowd of blacks. In a few
minutes we two were speeding over the sunlit waters, my only weapon being
the steel harpoon I had brought with me from the island, and about forty
or fifty feet of manilla rope. When we were some miles from land I
noticed a dark-looking object on the surface of the water a little way
ahead. Feeling certain it was a dugong feeding on the well-known
"grass," I rose and hurled my harpoon at it with all the force I could
muster. Next moment, to my amazement, the head of a calf whale was
thrust agonisingly into the air, and not until then did I realise what
manner of creature it was I had struck. This baby whale was about
fifteen feet long, and it "sounded" immediately on receiving my harpoon.
As I had enough rope, or what I considered enough, I did not cut him
adrift. He came up again presently, lashing the water with his tail, and
creating a tremendous uproar, considering his size. He then darted off
madly, dashing through the water like an arrow, and dragging our boat at
such a tremendous pace as almost to swamp us in the foaming wash, the bow
wave forming a kind of wall on each side.

Up to this time I had no thought of danger, but just as the baby whale
halted I looked round, and saw to my horror that its colossal mother had
joined her offspring, and was swimming round and round it like lightning,
apparently greatly disturbed by its sufferings. Before I could even cut
the line or attempt to get out of the way, the enormous creature caught
sight of our little craft, and bore down upon us like a fair-sized island
rushing through the sea with the speed of an express train. I shouted to
Yamba, and we both threw ourselves over the side into the now raging
waters, a