But this sort of thing was tiring and unprofitable.The interest of the place soon fizzled out, when it was found there was so little worth taking away; so, as the day was getting on, it was decided to launch off and start fishing.In a few minutes we were afloat again, and anchored, in about four fathoms, in as favourable a spot for our sport as ever I saw.Fish swarmed about us of many sorts, but principally of the "kauwhai," a kind of mullet very plentiful about Auckland, and averaging five or six pounds.Much to my annoyance, we had not been able to get any bait, except a bit of raw salt-pork, which hardly any fish but the shark tribe will look at.Had I known or thought of it, a bit of goat would have been far more attractive.
However, as there was no help for it, we baited up and started.
"Nary nibble ermong 'em!" growled Sam, as we sat impatiently waiting for a bite.When we hauled up to see what was wrong, fish followed the hook up in hundreds, letting us know plainly as possible that they only wanted something tasty.It was outrageous, exasperating beyond measure! At last Samuela grew so tired of it that he seized his harpoon, and hurled it into the middle of a company of kauwhai that were calmly nosing around the bows.By the merest chance he managed to impale one of them upon the broad point.It was hardly in the boat before I had seized it, scaled it, and cut it into neat little blocks.All hands rebaited with it, and flung out again.The change was astounding.Up they came, two at a time, dozens and dozens of them kauwhai, cavalle, yellow-tail, schnapper--lovely fish of delicious flavour and goodly size.Then one of us got a fish which made him yell, "Shark! shark!" with all his might.He had a small line of American cotton, staunch as copper wire, but dreadfully cutting to the hands.When he took a turn round the logger-head, the friction of the running line cut right into the white oak, but the wonderful cord and hook still held their own.
At last the monster yielded, coming in at first inch by inch, then more rapidly, till raised in triumph above the gunwhale--a yellow-tail six feet long.I have caught this splendid fish (ELAGATIS BIPINNULATIS) many times before and since then, but never did I see such a grand specimen as this one--no, not by thirty or forty pounds.Then I got a giant cavalle.His broad, shield-like body blazed hither and thither as I struggled to ship him, but it was long ere he gave in to superior strength and excellence of line and hook.
Meanwhile, the others had been steadily increasing our cargo, until, feeling that we had quite as much fish as would suffice us, besides being really a good load, I suggested a move towards the ship.We were laying within about half a mile of the shore, where the extremity of the level land reached the cliffs.Up one of the well-worn tracks a fine, fat goat was slowly creeping, stopping every now and then to browse upon the short herbage that clung to the crevices of the rock.Without saying a word, Polly the Kanaka slipped over the side, and struck out with swift overhead strokes for the foot of the cliff.As soon as I saw what, he was after, I shouted loudly for him to return, but he either could not or would not hear me.The fellow's seal-like ability as a swimmer was, of course, well known to me, but I must confess I trembled for his life in such a weltering whirl of rock-torn sea as boiled among the crags at the base of that precipice.He, however, evidently knew what he was going to do, and, though taking risks which would have certainly been fatal to an ordinary swimmer, was quite unafraid of the result.
We all watched him breathlessly as he apparently headed straight for the biggest outlying rock--a square, black boulder about the size of an ordinary railway car.He came up to it on the summit of a foaming wave; but just as I looked for him to be dashed to pieces against its adamantine sides, he threw his legs into the air and disappeared.A stealthy, satisfied smile glowed upon Samuela's rugged visage, and, as he caught my eye, he said jauntily, "Polly savee too much.Lookee him come on top one time!" I looked, and sure enough there was the daring villain crawling up among the kelp far out of reach of the hungry rollers.It was a marvellous exhibition of coolness and skill.
