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Tales of the Angler's El Dorado, New Zealand
by
Zane Grey

First published 1926




Chapter I


THE VOYAGE TO NEW ZEALAND, 1925

There is always something wonderful about a new fishing adventure
trip--for a single day, or for a week, or for months. The enchantment
never palls. For years on end I have been trying to tell why, but that
has been futile. Fishing is like Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece.

The most humble fisherman has this in common with fishermen of all
degrees. Whatever it is that haunts and enchants surely grows with
experience. Even the thousandth trip to the same old familiar fished-out
stream begins with renewed hope, with unfailing faith. Quien sabe? as the
Spaniards say. You cannot tell what you might catch. And even if you do
not catch anything the joy somehow is there. The child is father to the
man. Saturdays and vacation times call everlastingly to the boy. The
pond, the stream, the river, the lake and the sea. Something evermore is
about to happen. Every fishing trip is a composite of all other trips,
and it holds irresistible promise for the future. That cup cannot be
drained. There are always greater fish than you have caught; always the
lure of greater task and achievement; always the inspiration to seek, to
endure, to limb always the beauty of the lonely stream and open sea;
always he glory and dream of nature.

When I fished under the stark lava slopes of the Galapagos and in the
amethyst waters around Cocos Island and around the White Friars I
imagined each was the epitome of angling, that I could never adventure
higher and farther. But in this same year, 1925, when we shot the wild
rapids of the Rogue River and cast our flies where none save Indians
had ever fished, the same elusive and beautiful thing beckoned like
a will-o'-the-wisp. It is in the heart.

On December thirtieth, when Captain Laurie Mitchell and I stood on the
deck of the Royal Mail S.S. Makura, steaming out through the Golden Gate
bound for the Antipodes to seek new waters, the same potent charm
pervaded my being. There was a Lorelei calling from the South Seas; there
was a siren bell ringing from the abysmal deep.

San Francisco Bay at that hour was a far cry from the turquoise-blue
water of the tropics. A steely sun made pale bright light upon the
ruffled bay; gray fog shrouded the dome of Mt. Tamalpais; from the
northwest a cold wind drove down on the bare brown hills to whip the
muddy water into a choppy sea. The broken horizon line of the beautiful
city of hills shone dark against the sky. A flock of screaming gulls
sailed and swooped about the stern of the vessel.

A big French freighter kept abreast of the Makura through the Golden
Gate, then turned north, while we headed to the southwest. The Royal Mail
ship Makura was no leviathan, but she certainly was a greyhound of the
sea. In less than an hour I saw the mountains fade into the fog. That
last glimpse of California had to suffice me for a long time. We ran into
a heavy-ridged sea, cold and dark, with sullen whitecaps breaking. I
walked the decks, watching as always, until the sky became overspread
with dark clouds, and a chill wind drove me inside.

That night after dinner I went out again. The sky was dark, the sea
black, except for the pale upheavals of billows which gleamed through the
obscurity. The ship was rushing on, now with a graceful, slow forward dip
and then with a long rise. She was very steady. Great swells crashed
against her bows and heaved back into the black gulfs. There was a
continuous roar of chafing waters. An old familiar dread of the ocean
mounted in me again. What a mighty force! It was a cold, wintry almost
invisible sea, not conducive to the thrill and joy of the angler. It was
a northern sea, gusty, turbulent, with rough swells. I leaned over the
rail in the darkness, trying to understand its meaning, its mood, trying
to be true to the love I bore it in tranquil moments.

Next morning when I went out the decks were wet, the sky gray, except low
down in the east where rays of sunlight slipped through to brighten the
cold gray buffeting sea.

I noted several sea birds following in the wake of the ship. They were
new to me. Dark in color, marvelously built, with small compact bodies,
sharp as a bullet, and with long narrow wings, they appeared to have been
created for perfect control of the air. They sailed aloft and swooped
down, skimmed the foamy crests, rode abreast of the rough seas, and
dipped into the hollows, all apparently without slightest effort of wing.
I did not see them flap a wing once. This is a common habit of many sea
birds, especially the shearwaters, but I had never before seen it
performed so swiftly and wonderfully. These birds had a wing spread of
three feet, and must have belonged to the shearwater family. Lonely
wanderers of the barren waste of waters!

Morning and afternoon swiftly passed, the hours flying with the speed of
the Makura over the waves. Toward sunset, which was only a dim ruddy glow
behind the fog banks, the chill wind, the darkening sea, the black somber
fading light all predicted storm. The last daylight hours of the last day
of 1925 were melancholy and drear. I was reminded of November back in
Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, where so often I heard the autumn winds wail
under the eaves, and the rain pelt the roof--mournful prelude to winter.

This rough sea was like that of the north, where off the rugged shores of
Puget Sound the contending tides are raw and bold. The winter twilight
quickly merged into the blanket of night. Then out there in the opaque
blackness the sea roared by the ship, tremendous and inscrutable, with
nothing to inspire love, with everything to confound the soul of man.
What was the old year to the sea, or the new year soon to dawn with its
imagined promise, its bright face, its unquenchable hope? Nevertheless,
the thought that overbalanced this depression was of the magic isles of
the South Seas, set like mosaics in the eternal summer blue, and the
haunting Antipodes, seven thousand miles down the lanes of the Pacific.

All morning of the the third day out the Makura sped on over a lumpy
leaden sea, mirroring the gray of the sky. How tenaciously the drab
shadow of winter clung to us! Yet there had come some degree of warmth,
and on the afternoon of this day the cold wind departed. When the
sunlight strayed through the fog, it gave the sea its first tinge of
blue; but the sun shone only fitfully. There was no life on the sea, and
apparently none in it. Neither bird nor fish showed to long-practised
eyes. I wondered about this. We were hundreds of miles offshore, out of
the track of the schools of sardines and anchovies that birds and fish
prey upon. Still there should have been some manifestation of life. How
vast the ocean! Were its spaces and depths utterly barren? That was hard
to believe.

Sunset that night was rose and gold, a gorgeous color thrown upon a thin
webbed mass of mackerel cloud that for long held its radiance. It seemed
to be a promise of summer weather. Sunrise next morning likewise was a
blazing belt of gold. But these rich colorings were ephemeral and
deceiving. The sky grew dark and gray. From all points masses of cumulous
clouds rose above the horizon, at last to unite in a canopy of leaden
tones. A wind arose and the sea with it. The air still had an edge.

All day the Makura raced over a magnificent sea of long swells rising to
white breaking crests. The ship had a slow careen, to and fro, from side
to side, making it difficult to walk erect and steadily. The turbulent
mass of water was almost black. Its loneliness was as manifest as when
calm. No sail! No smoke from steamer down beyond the horizon! No sign of
fish or bird! I seemed to have been long on board. The immensity of the
sea began to be oppressive. That day and the next we drove on over a gray
squally expanse of waters.

The time came when I saw my first flying fish of the trip. It was an
event. He appeared to be a tiny little fellow, steely in color, scarcely
larger than a humming bird. But for me he meant life on the ocean.
Thereafter while on deck I kept watch. We had sunshine for a few hours
and then the warmth became evident. The sea was a raging buffeting
rolling plain of dark blue and seething white. We were a thousand miles
and more off the coast, where I felt sure the wind always blew. We were
in the track of the trade winds.

On the sixth day the air became humid. We had reached the zone of summer.
Every mile now would carry us toward the tropics.

I saw some porpoises, small yellow ones, active in flight. They were a
proof of fish, for porpoises seldom roam far away from their food supply.
I wondered if they preyed upon the tiny flying fish. Swift as the
porpoise is, I doubt that he could catch them. As we sped south I noted
more and more schools of flying fish, rising in a cloud, like silvery
swallows. Presently I espied one that appeared larger, with reddish
wings. This was a surprise, and I thought I had made a mistake as I had
not a really good look at it. Not long afterward, however, I saw another,
quite close, and made certain of the red wings. Then soon following I
espied three more of the same species. They certainly could sail and
glide and dart over the rough water.

We ran into a squall. Rain and spray wet my face as I paced the deck.
Out ahead the gray pall was like a bank of fog. The sea became rougher.
Our wireless brought news of a hurricane raging over the South Seas,
centering around the Samoan Islands, where tidal waves had caused much
damage. What had become of the tranquil Pacific? Late that afternoon we
ran out of the squalls into a less-disturbed sea.

Captain Mitchell met two widely-traveled Englishmen on board, brothers,
by name Radmore. They came from the same part of England where Captain
Mitchell was born; and it must have been pleasant, as well as poignant,
for him to talk with them. He introduced them to me, and I found them
exceedingly interesting, as I have found so many Englishmen. I did not
need to be told that they had been in the war.

I was particularly interested in their voyage to New Zealand, which was
for the same purpose as ours--the wonderful possibilities of adventure,
especially fishing, to be had in the Antipodes. The elder Radmore had
been often to New Zealand, and in fact he knew Australasia, and island
seas to the north. He was a big-game hunter, having had some extensive
hunts in Burma, India, the Malay Peninsula and British East Africa. He
said game of all kinds had increased enormously during and since the war,
especially in Africa. Tigers were abundant in Burma and seldom hunted.
What the fishing possibilities might be in the waters adjacent to these
places he had no idea. No sportsman had ever tried them. I conceived an
impression of magnificent unknown virgin seas, so far as fish was
concerned. What a splendid thrill that gave me!

Radmore told me many things, two of which I must chronicle here. The
pearl fishing off the New Guinea coast: it was new pearl country,
comparatively. In fact, New Guinea is still one of the little-known
islands. Next to Australia it is the largest in the world, and it has
many leagues of unexplored coast line. Radmore told me that at one time
rare pearls could be cheaply procured from the natives, who had not yet
become aware of their value. A can of peaches bought a $16,000 pearl! The
Radmores, coming into San Pedro on the S.S. Manchuria, had their
attention called to my schooner Fisherman anchored in the bay. They said
if they had that ship they would surely go to New Guinea.

On a voyage from New Zealand to England, round the Horn, Radmore had seen
a remarkable battle between a sperm whale, or cachalot, and two great
orcas. This conflict had taken place in smooth water close to a reef
along which the ship was skirting. The whale was on the surface,
apparently unable to sound, and he beat the water terrifically with his
enormous flukes. The sound was exceedingly loud and continuous, almost
resembling thunder. The orcas threw their huge white-and-black bodies
high into the air, and plunged down upon the back of the whale. They hit
with a sodden crash. The cachalot threshed with his mighty tail, trying
to strike them, but they eluded it. The commotion in the water seemed
incredible. This battle continued as long as the watchers could see with
the naked eye, and then with glasses. The captain, who had sided that
route for forty years, said that was the third fight of the kind he had
seen.

Radmore was certain the whale was a cachalot, or sperm. Personally, I
incline to the opinion that it was some other kind of whale. Andrews and
other authorities on whales claim that the whale-killers and orcas let
the cachalot severely alone. He is more than a match for them. Armed with
a terrible set of teeth and a head one-third the length of his
ninety-foot body, the cachalot would appear to be impervious to attacks
from sea creatures. On the other hand, other whales are helpless before
the onslaught of these wolves of the sea. They become almost paralyzed
with fright, and make little attempt to escape their foes. This is the
naturalistic opinion on the subject, and I incline to it, although I admit
a possibility of unusual cases. The wonderful thing about the narrative
for me was to think of seeing such a battle and photographing it.

On the morning of January sixth before daybreak we crossed the equator. I
went out on deck before sunrise. Sea and sky were radiant with a pearly
effulgence. There were no reds, purples or golds. White and silver, gray
and pearl predominated, which colors intensified as the sun came up,
giving a beautiful effect. All around the horizon the trade-wind clouds
rode like sails. They had the same ship-like shape, the same level
bottoms and round windblown feathery margins as the trade-wind clouds
above the Gulf Stream between Cuba and the Keys but not the color!
Sunrise off the Keys of Florida is a glorious burst of crimson and gold
that flames sky and sea.

We were now in the southern hemisphere, and I felt that it would be
interesting for me to note the slow march of the sun to the north. On the
equator the sun always sets at six o'clock. So far the voyage had been
remarkably free of glaring white sunlight. This day when we crossed the
equator we had alternately bright sunlight and soft gray-shaded sky.

Sometimes the ships of the Union Line pass within sight of the high peaks
of the Marquesan Islands. I could not but feel what marvelous good
fortune for me that it should be my lot. As it turned out, however, we
did not pass close enough to the Marquesans to see them. I had to satisfy
myself with the thrilling fact that somewhere short of a hundred miles
beyond the horizon lay these gem-isles of the Pacific, alone amid the
splendid solitude of this purple sea.

The night we entered the Tuamotu Archipelago, or Low Islands, I had a
striking sight of the planet Venus, so extraordinarily beautiful and
incredibly bright in that latitude. The great star was exceedingly
brilliant, yet not white; it had color, almost a gold or red, and left a
shining track over the waters almost like that of the moon. Sometimes it
seemed like a huge lantern hung close to the ship; again it retreated to
the very rim of the world. Then how swiftly it went down into the sea!
Another phenomenon I had noted lately was the singularly swift sunset,
and the extreme brevity of light afterward.

There are two kinds of islands in the South Pacific, the low and the
high. The former consist of atolls with their circular ridge of white sand
above the coral, fringed with cocoanut palms; and the latter, mountains
of volcanic origin, are characterized by high peaks densely overgrown
with tropical verdure. The Paumotus are a vast aggregation of low
islands, or atolls, sprinkled all over a great range of water. Yachts are
forbidden to adventure in this perilous archipelago. The charts cannot be
trusted, the currents are treacherous, the winds more contrary than
anywhere else on the globe. Yet the course of the S.S. Makura ran
straight through the archipelago. Probably many atolls were passed close
at hand, wholly invisible from the deck; and it was only at the latter
part of the long run through, that the course came anywhere near the
clustered islands that gave the place its name.



Chapter II


ISLAND STOPOVER

My first and long-yearned-for sight of an atoll came about midafternoon
on January eighth. I saw with naked eyes what most passengers were using
marine glasses to distinguish. It was a low fringe of cocoanut-palm trees
rising out of the blue sea. What a singular first impression I had!
Instantly it seemed I was fishing off the Florida Keys, along the edge of
the Gulf Stream, and that I knew my location exactly because I could
still see the cocoanut palms of Long Key. I found myself saying, "They
are about six miles in, unless these Pacific cocoanuts are much higher
trees than those of the Atlantic."

This islet, or atoll, was the first of many of the Tuamotu Archipelago
that were soon to rise gradually out of the heaving blue floor of the
ocean. They appeared like green growths on a Hindu magician's carpet.
Most were small with just a few trees fringing the sky line; but some
were long and large, with thick groves of cocoanut palms. It was
impossible, of course, to distinguish these atolls from the Keys of the
Florida Peninsula or the islets of the Caribbean Sea. The great beauty of
an atoll cannot be seen from afar. The ring of coral sand rising just
above the sea, the ring of cocoanuts round it, the ring of turquoise-blue
water inside, the ever-framed lagoon, blue as the sky, serene and
tranquil, with its sands of gold and pearl, its myriads of colored fish,
the tremendous thundering of the surf outside--these wonderful features
could not be appreciated from the ship.

I went up on the third deck where I could see the strips of white beach
and the bright-green band of palms. These Paumotus surely called with all
the mystery and glory of the South Pacific; but our ship passed swiftly
on her way and soon night blotted out sight of the fascinating atolls.

Next morning I was up before dawn. The ship was moving very slowly. I
could scarcely hear any sound of swirling waters. I went out on deck in
the dim opaque gloom of a South Pacific dawn. The air was fresh, cool,
balmy, laden with a scent of land. On the starboard side I saw a black
mountain, rising sharp with ragged peaks. This island was Moorea, the
first of the Society group.

Soon dead ahead appeared the strange irregular form of Tahiti. It made a
marvelous spectacle, with the rose of the east kindling low down in a
notch between two peaks. Tahiti was high. I watched the day come and the
sun rise over this famous island, and it was indescribable. We went
through a gateway in the barrier reef, where the swells curled and
roared, and on into the harbor to the French port, Papeete.

Seen from the deck of a vessel Papeete was beautiful, green and
luxurious, with its colored roofs, its blossoming trees, its schooners
and other South Sea craft moored along the shore. The rise of the island,
however, its ridged slopes of emerald green and amber red, its patches of
palms, its purple canyons streaked with white waterfalls, its ragged,
notched, bold peaks crowned with snowy clouds--these made a spectator
forget that Papeete nestled at its base.

I spent a full day in this world-famed South Sea Island port, the French
Papeete. It was long enough for me! Despite all I had read I had arrived
there free of impressions, with eager receptive mind. I did not wonder
that Robert Louis Stevenson went to the South Seas a romancer and became
a militant moralist. It was not fair, however, to judge other places
through contact with Papeete.

The French have long been noted for the careless and slovenly way in
which they govern provinces. Papeete is a good example. There is no
restriction against the Chinese, who appeared to predominate in business.
Papeete is also the eddying point for all the riffraff of the South Seas.
The beach comber, always a romantic if pathetic figure in my memory,
through the South Sea stories I have read, became by actual contact
somewhat disconcerting to me, and wholly disgusting. Perhaps I did not
see any of the noble ruins.

Every store I entered in Papeete was run by a crafty-eyed little
Chinaman. I heard that the Chinese merchants had all the money. It was no
wonder. I saw very few French people. I met one kindly-looking priest.
All the whites who fell under my gaze seemed to me to be sadly out of
place there. They were thin, in most cases pale and unhealthy-looking.
It was plain to me that the Creator did not intend white men to live on
South Sea Islands. If he had he would have made the pigment of their
skins capable of resisting the sun.

This was the early summer for Tahiti. It was hot. New York at 99 degrees
in the shade, or Needles, California, at 115 degrees, would give some
idea of heat at Papeete. It was a moist, sticky, oppressive, enervating
heat that soon prostrated. I always could stand hot weather, and I
managed to get around under this. But many of the ship passengers
suffered, and by five o'clock that evening were absolutely exhausted.

What amazed me was the fact that this heat did not prevent the drinking
of liquor. Champagne and other beverages were exceedingly cheap at
Papeete. I found out long ago that a great many people who think they
travel to see and learn really travel to eat and drink, and the close of
this day on shore at Papeete provided a melancholy example of the fact.
If I saw one bottle of liquor come aboard the S.S. Makura I saw a
hundred. Besides such openly avowed bottles, there were cases and cases
packed up in the companionway for delivery.

Captain Mitchell, Mr. Radmore and I visited the hotel or resort made
famous mostly through Mr. O'Briens book, White Shadows of the South Seas.
Luxurious growths of green and wonderfully fragrant flowers surrounded
this little low house of many verandas; but that was about all I could
see attractive there. It appeared different classes of drinkers had
different rooms in which to imbibe. Of those I passed, some approached
what in America we would call a dive. It is all in the way people look at
a thing. The licentiousness of women and the availability of wine rank
high in the properties of renown.

The Tahitian women presented an agreeable surprise to me. From all the
exotic photographs I had seen I had not been favorably impressed. But
photographs do not do justice to Tahitian women. I saw hundreds of them,
and except in a few cases, noticeably the dancers, who in fact were
faked to impress the tourists, they were modestly dressed and graceful in
appearance. They were strong, well built though not voluptuous, rather
light-skinned and not at all suggesting negroid blood. They presented a
new race to me. They had large melting melancholy eyes. They wore their
hair in braids down their backs, like American schoolgirls of long ago
when something of America still survived in our girls. These Tahitians
had light-brown, sometimes nut-brown and chestnut hair, rich and thick
and beautiful. What a delight to see! What pleasure to walk behind one of
these barefooted and free-stepping maidens just for the innocent
happiness of gazing at her wonderful braid! No scrawny shaved bristled
necks, such as the flappers exhibit now, to man's bewildered disgust;
no erotic and abnormal signs of wanting to resemble a male! Goodness
only knows why so-called civilized white women of modern times want to
look like men, but so it seems they do. If they could see the backs of
the heads of these Tahitian girls and their long graceful braids of hair,
that even a fool of a man could tell made very little trouble, and was
so exquisitely feminine and beautiful, they might have a moment of
illumined mind.

The scene at the dock as the S.S. Makura swung off was one I shall not
soon forget. Much of Papeete was there, except, most significantly, the
Chinese. No doubt they were busily counting the enormous number of French
francs they had amassed during the day. The watchers in the background
were quiet and orderly, and among these were French ladies who were
bidding friends farewell, and other white people whose presence made me
divine they were there merely to watch a ship depart for far shores. A
ship they longed to be aboard. I could read it in their eyes.

In the foreground, however, were many Tahitian women and some half caste,
with the loud-mouthed roustabouts who were raving at the drunken louts
on board the ship. It was not a pretty sight. Near me on the rail sat an
inebriated youth, decorated with flowers, waving a champagne bottle at
those below. I did not see any friendliness in the uplifted dark eyes.
This was only another ship going on down to the sea; and I thought most
of those on hoard were held in contempt by those on land.

I did not leave Papeete, however, without most agreeable and beautiful
impressions. Outside of the town there were the simplicity and beauty of
the native habitations and the sweetness of the naked little Tahitians
disporting on the beach. There were the magnificence of the verdure,
foliage and flowers and the heavy atmosphere languorous with fragrance.
There were the splendour of the surf breaking on the reef seen through
the stately cocoanut palms, the burn of the sun and the delicious cool of
the shade. There were the utter and ever-growing strangeness of the
island and the unknown perceptions that were gradually building up an
impression of the vastness of the South Sea. There were the splendor of
Nature in her most lavish moods and the unsolvable mystery of human life.

I saw many old Tahitian men who I imagined had eaten human flesh, "long
pig", as they called it in their day. The record seemed written in their
great strange eyes.

Birds and fish were almost negligible at Tahiti. For all the gazing that
I put in I saw only a few small needle fish. Not a shark, not a line, Wit
a break or swirl on the surface! There were no gulls, no sea birds of any
kind, and I missed them very much. I saw several small birds about the
size of robins, rather drab-colored with white on their wings, black heads
and yellow beaks. They were tame and had a musical note.

On the next day out from Papeete we saw steamship smoke on the horizon.
It grew into the funnel of a ship, then the hull, and at last the bulk of
the sister ship of the Makura, the Tahiti. She passed us perhaps five
miles away, a noble sight, and especially fascinating because she was the
only traveling craft on our horizon throughout the voyage.

A little after daybreak on the following morning I was awakened by the
steward, who said Rarotonga was in sight. From a distance this island
appeared to be a cone-shaped green mass rising to several high
sharp-toothed peaks. Near at hand, in the glory of the sunrise, it looked
like a beautiful mountain, verdant and colorful, rising out of a violet
sea. I noted the extremely sharp serrated ridges rising to the peaks, all
thickly covered with tropic verdure. The island appeared to be surrounded
by a barrier reef, against which the heaving sea burst into white
breakers.

Schools of flying fish, darting like swarms of silver bees, flew from
before our bows. That was a promising sight, for usually where there are
schools of small fish the great game fish will be found. Here, as at
Tahiti, there was a marked absence of birds.

After Papeete, the weather was delightfully cool. The Makura anchored
outside the reef, half a mile from shore, and small launches with
canoe-shaped lighters carried cargo and passengers through a narrow gate
in the reef to the docks.

Rarotonga was under English control, and certainly presented an inspiring
contrast to the decadent and vitiated Papeete. At once we were struck
with the cleanliness of streets and wharfs, and the happy, care-free
demeanor of the natives. They looked prosperous, and we were to learn
that they all owned their bit of cocoanut grove and were independent. We
drove around the island, a matter of twenty miles more or less. The road
was level and shady all the way, with the violet white-wreathed sea
showing through the cocoanut trees on one side and the wonderful sharp
peaks rising above the forest on the other.

There were places as near paradise as it has been my good fortune to see.
Flowers were as abundant as in a conservatory, with red and white
blossoms prevailing. Children ran from every quarter to meet us,
decorated with wreaths and crowns of flowers, and waving great bunches of
the glorious bloom. They were bright-eyed merry children, sincere in
their welcome to the visitors. Some of the native houses were set in open
glades, where wide-spreading, fern-leaved trees blazing with crimson
blossoms were grouped about the green shady lawns. The glamour of the
beautiful colors was irresistible. The rich thick amber light of June in
some parts of the United States had always seemed to me to be
unsurpassable; but compared with the gold-white and rose-pink lights of
Rarotonga it grew pale and dull in memory. The air was warm, fragrant,
languorous. It seemed to come from eternal summer. Everywhere sounded the
wash of the surf of the reef. You could never forget the haunting
presence of the ocean.

After our trip round the island we spent a couple of hours on the beach
with the natives. This was in the center of the town. A continual stream
of natives strolled and rode by. Their colored garments added to the
picturesque attraction of the place. On the reef just outside could be
seen the bones of a schooner sticking from the surface; and farther out
the ironwork of a huge ship that had been wrecked there years ago. They
seemed grim reminders of the remorselessness of the azure sea. The
atmosphere of the hour was one of sylvan summer, the gentle and pleasant
warmth of the South Seas, the idle, happy tranquillity of a place favored
by the gods; but only a step out showed the naked white teeth of the
coral reef, and beyond that the inscrutable and changeful sea.

We bought from the natives until our limited stock of English money ran
out. Then we were at the pains of seeing the very best of the pearls,
baskets, bead necklaces and hatbands, fans and feathers, exhibited for
our edification. These natives found their tongues after a while and
talked in English very well indeed. What a happy contrast from the
melancholy shadow-faced Tahitians!

It was interesting to learn that liquor is prohibited at Rarotonga. If
any evidence were needed in favor of prohibition, here it was in the
beautiful healthy wholesome life on Rarotonga. Indeed, everyone appeared
charmed with the beauty, color, simplicity and happiness of this island.
"By Jove! Rarotonga is just what I wanted a South Sea Island to be!" was
the felicitous way Mr. Radmore put it. Absolutely this charm would grow
on one. It might not do to spend a long time at Rarotonga. But I decided
that some day I would risk coming for a month or two. We learned that at
certain seasons fish were plentiful, especially the giant swordfish.
Among he other islands of the Cook group was one over a hundred miles from
Rarotonga, rarely visited by whites, and said to be exquisitely beautiful
and wonderful.

One of the passengers who boarded the Makura at Rarotonga was was Dr.
Lambert, head of the Rockefeller Foundation in the South seas. He was
an exceedingly interesting man to meet. He had been eight years in the
islands, and knew the native life as well as anyone living. He called
Papeete an uncovered brothel; and indeed had no good word for any of
the French islands. It was of no use, he claimed, to try to interest the
French in improvements; and therefore he had not been able to let the
Tahitians and Marquesans benefit by the splendid work being done by
the foundation.

Dr. Lambert clarified many obscure points in my mind. He was a keen close
student, and he had been everywhere. Those writers who had recorded the
havoc done by syphilis had simply been wrong. There is little or no
syphilis in the South Seas. The disease, haws by name, has been mistaken
for syphilis, but it is not a venereal disease.

Drink introduced by the traders has always been the curse. In those
islands like Rarotonga where the sale and trading of drink have been
prohibited the natives have recovered their former happy and prosperous
estate. Immorality among the young people remains about the same as it
always has been, but the natives do not regard such relation as anything
to be ashamed of. It is simple, natural, and has ever been so. The
married woman, however, is usually virtuous.

On Tuesday, January thirteenth, we crossed the 180th meridian, and
somewhere along there we were to drop a day, lose it entirely out of the
week! I imagine that day should have been Tuesday, but the steamship
company, no doubt for reasons of its own, made Saturday the day. How
queer to go to bed Friday night and wake up Sunday morning! Where would
the Saturday have flown? I resolved to put it down to the mysteries of
latitude and longitude.

There was another thing quite as strange, yet wholly visible, and that
was the retreat of the sun toward the north; imperceptibly at first, but
surely. I saw the sun rise north of east and set north of west. As the
Makura rushed tirelessly on her way, this northward trend of the sun
became more noticeable. It quite changed my world; turned me upside down.
How infinitely vast and appalling seem the earth and the sea! Yet they
are but dots in the universe. Verily a traveler sees much to make him
think.



Chapter III


DESTINATION: BAY OF ISLANDS--THE ANGLER'S EL DORADO

There were two pearl traders on the Makura who had boarded the ship at
Rarotonga. One of them, Drury Low, had not been off his particular island
for fifteen years. He was a strange low-voiced new type of man to me. I
think he was Scotch. He lived at Aitutaki Island, one of the Cook group,
said to be the loveliest island in the South Seas. His companion's name
was McCloud. They gave me information concerning a great game fish around
Aitutaki Island. They excited my curiosity to such extent that I got out
photographs of yellow-fin tuna, broadbill swordfish, Marlin swordfish,
and sailfish. To my amazement these men identified each, and assured me
positively that these species were common in the Cook Islands. They also
described to me what must be a sawfish, native to these waters. The
yellow-fin tuna was called varu in the Cook Islands, walu in the Fijis,
and grew to large size. Low saw one caught recently weighing one hundred
and six pounds, and knew of others over a hundred. These were caught on
hand-lines, trolling outside the reef. Recently a large one was hooked,
and bitten in two by a shark. The smaller part that was hauled in weighed
over two hundred.

The traders told of a Marlin being caught on a hand-line. It was a
leaping fish, and over nine feet in length. McCloud then told of the
capture of a sixteen-foot sail-fish, on a heavy hand-line. It took half a
day to subdue this fish. A sixteen-foot sailfish, if at all heavy-bodied,
would weigh at least five hundred, most likely more. I saw a picture of a
fish that closely resembled the wahoo. They called it a kingfish.

To establish the fact of these great game fish in the South Seas was
something of paramount importance to me, and the cause of much
speculation. What might it not lead to? How incalculably are our lives
influenced by apparently little things!

Never shall I forget my first absolutely certain sight of an albatross.
it was on the afternoon of January fifteenth about two o'clock. I heard
some one speaking of a wonderful bird following the ship, so I at once
ran out. Wonderful bird? How futile are words! When I saw this sea bird
of Ancient Mariner fame I just gasped, "Oh! Grand!" But then I have an
unusual love for birds.

The albatross had a white body and brown wings that spread ten feet from
tip to tip. They were a lighter color underneath. The breast, back and
head were pure white; the body appeared to be as large as that of a
goose; the head had something of an eagle shape, seen at such a distance.
From head to tail there was a slight bow, sometimes seen in sea gulls.
But it was the wing spread, the vast bow-shaped, marvelous wings that so
fascinated me. I had watched condors, eagles, vultures, falcons, hawks,
kites, frigate birds, terns, boobies, all the great performers of the
air, but I doubted that I had ever seen the equal of the albatross. What
sailing! What a swoop! What splendid poise and ease, and then incredible
speed! The albatross would drop back a mile from the ship, and then all
in a moment, it seemed, he had caught up again. I watched him through my
glass. I devoured him. I yearned to see him close. How free, how
glorious! I wondered if that bird had a soul such as Coleridge would
endow him with. If dogs were almost human in their understanding of men,
why could not wild birds have something as unusual? The albatross had
always haunted me, inspired me, filled me with awe, reverence.

Late in the afternoon I espied another albatross, or at least one that on
nearer view looked different. I climbed to the top deck and went aft to
the stern rail, where I had an hour of delight in watching him from an
unobstructed vantage point. The markings differed enough to convince me
it might be another albatross. The body was flecked with brown, the neck
ringed with the same color; the head like that of a frigate bird, only
very much larger; the bill yellow, long and hooked. There was a dark
marking on the white tail; the backs of the wings were dark brown, almost
black, and the under side cream white except for black tips. He surely
was a beautiful and majestic bird, lord of the sea. Where he swooped down
from a height, he turned on his side so that one wing tip skimmed the
waves and the other stood straight up. He sailed perpendicularly. He was
ponderous, graceful, swift. A few motions of the wide wings sent him
sailing, careening, swooping. He appeared tireless, as if the air was his
native element, as no doubt it is, more than the sea. Once he alighted
like a feather, keeping his large wings up, as if not to wet them. When
he launched himself again it was to run on the water, like a shearwater,
until he had acquired momentum enough to keep him up. Then he lifted
himself clear.

Sunday morning at ten, January seventeenth, I sighted land. New Zealand!
High pale cliffs rising to dark mountain ranges in the background swept
along the western horizon as far as I could see.

While watching an albatross I was tremendously thrilled by the sight of
an amazingly large broadbill swordfish. He was not over three hundred
yards from the ship. His sickle fins stood up strikingly high, with the
old rakish saber shape so wonderful to the sea angler. Tail and dorsal
fins were fully ten feet apart. He was a monster. I yelled in my
enthusiasm, and then ran for Captain Mitchell. But on my return I could
not locate the fins. The fish had sounded or gone out of sight.

This was about fifteen miles offshore; and it was an event of importance.
Swordfish do not travel alone.

Wellington, our port of debarkation, was a red-roofed city on hills
surrounding a splendid bay. It had for me a distinctly foreign look,
different from any city I had ever seen before; a clean, cold, tidy look,
severe and substantial. From Wellington to Auckland was a long ride of
fifteen hours, twelve of which were daylight. The country we traversed
had been cut and burned over, and reminded me of the lumbered districts
of Washington and Oregon. One snow-capped mountain, Tongariro, surrounded
at the base by thick, green forests, was really superb; and the active
cone-shaped volcano, Ngauruhoe, held my gaze as long as I could see it. A
thick column of white and yellow steam or smoke rose from the crater and
rolled away with the clouds.

Auckland appeared to be a more pretentious city than the capital; and it
likewise was built upon hills. It is New Zealand's hub of industry. From
Auckland to Russell was another long day's ride, over partly devastated
country and part sylvan, which sustains well the sheep and cattle of the
stations thereabout. Farms and villages were numerous. The names of the
latter were for me unpronounceable and unrememberable. They were all
Maori names. At Opua, the terminus of the railroad, we took a boat for
Russell. We were soon among picturesque islands above which the green
mountains showed against the sky.

Russell turned out to be a beautiful little hamlet, the oldest in the
island, and one with which were connected many historical events. I he
hay resembled that of Avalon, having a crescent-shaped beach and a line
of quaint white houses. It is a summer resort, and children and
bobbed-haired girls were much in evidence. The advent of the Z.G. outfit
was apparently one of moment, to judge from the youngsters. They were
disappointed in me, however, for they frankly confessed they had expected
to see me in sombrero, chaps, spurs and guns. Young ladies of the village,
too, were disappointed, for they had shared with people all over the world
the illusion that the author Zane Grey was a woman. I found there in the
stores, as at Wellington and Auckland, the English editions of my books.

Alma Baker, the English sportsman, arrived that night with his family,
from Sydney, Australia. There were a number of Auckland anglers at the
hotel. We were pleased to hear that several Marlin swordfish and two mako
had already been taken at Cape Brett. The paramount interest in my trip,
of course, was in the fishing; and I exhausted both anglers and boatmen
with my curiosity and enthusiasm. Tackle, fish, methods, boats--everything
was entirely new in all my experience. Salt-water angling was a
development of only a few years there, and had not progressed far. It was
plain that their rods, reels, etc., had been an evolution from the
English salmon tackle. The rods were either a native wood called tanekaha
or split cane with a steel center, and from seven to eight feet in
length. The reels were mostly the large single-action Nottingham style
from England, and were mounted on the under side of the rods. Guides and
tips were huge affairs, and few and far between. Leaders, or "traces", as
they were called, were heavy braided wire, twenty or thirty feet long,
and the hooks were huge gangs, or three hooks in a triangle. The swivels
were disproportionately small. Up to the year 1925 the anglers had used
rod belts, but lately had developed swivel chairs, with a fixed rod seat.
They used a short heavy gaff, which was hooked round the tail of the
fish, and if it was a shark he was harpooned in addition. The harpoon was
really a crude heavy tozzle, mounted on a four-foot club. One of the New
Zealand anglers brought out his tackle for our edification. Captain
Mitchell and I surely handled it with thoughtful curiosity. We had to
admit that these New Zealand anglers had performed some mighty
achievements landing three-, four- and five-hundred-pound fish on such
rigs. It looked like most of the energy exerted would be wasted.

Both anglers and boatmen explained their methods of fishing. They used
dead and live bait. Trolling had been attempted at times, and
persistently by some anglers, but it was never successful. Their best
method appeared to be drifting with tide or wind, with live bait sunk ten
or fifteen fathoms. One boatman told me he had caught twenty-four Marlin,
three mako shark, and one thresher shark, moss of which had been foul
hooked, during the season of 1925. It was my opinion that this
circumstance could be laid to the three-hook gang, and the drifting
method. I was especially curious about this drifting with bait down deep,
which was something I had always wanted to try on broadbill swordfish.

We were two days at Russell, part of which time was taken up by a severe
storm. When it cleared off the weather left nothing to be desired. Some
one showed me a picture of New Bedford whaling ships at anchor in the
bay. In the early days of whaling this place had been a favorite station
for whalers, sometimes as many as thirty ships being anchored in the bay.
What fishing days those must have been! Whaling had not entirely played
out, and during our stay at Russell there was a small whaling steamer
there. The captain had fished with the New Bedford and Nantucket whalers
in those early days. He was most interesting. The season of 1925, just
ended, had netted him some fifty-odd whales, mostly finbacks. What was of
vastly more interest to me, he told of seeing schools of large round
bullet-shaped fish lying on the surface offshore some fifteen or twenty
miles. He said they had mackerel tails and silver bellies. That sounded
decidedly like tuna. We were keen to learn more, but that was all the
information available. The boatmen told of small tunny taken off Cape
Brett. One of the scientific booklets on New Zealand fish mentioned
long-fin albacore up to two hundred pounds caught by market fishermen.
These were undoubtedly the Allison tuna. We listened to numerous stories
about the hooking of great fish that never showed, and either broke away
or had to be cut off after hours of fighting. Altogether the experiences
and impressions of these anglers and boatmen proved the remarkable
possibilities of a new and undeveloped fishing resort. The boats reserved
for Captain Mitchell and me were quite different from any we had ever
used. They were close to forty feet in length, and eleven or twelve feet
in beam. The cockpits were deep; so deep that we had to build platforms
upon which to mount the fishing chairs we had brought from Avalon. It
looked to us then that we would have our troubles fighting fish from
these wide cockpits. On the other hand, the boats promised to be very
seaworthy and comfortable. The Marlin was the widest boat, with rather
high deck, and I decided it would be best for the motion-picture man and
his equipment. The launch I was to use had the name Alma G.

We had to get permission from the New Zealand government to take these
boats out of their district adjacent to Russell. The marine laws, and all
laws, for that matter, were very rigid. Colonel Allan Bell and the
Minister of Marine came to Russell to do all in their lower to help make
my visit to New Zealand waters a success. The Minister, at the earnest
solicitation of Colonel Bell, finally agreed toy allow us the privilege
of taking our boats anywhere, but declared he would not grant that
permission again. We were fortunate indeed.

Deep Water Cove Camp, about fifteen miles from Russell, was the
rendezvous where anglers stayed while fishing the waters adjacent to Cape
Brett. It accommodated ten or twelve anglers. I decided to follow my
usual plan of being independent of everyone and having a camp of my own.
We had brought our own tents, and we bought blankets. What wonderful
blankets they were, and cheap! I never saw their equal. We outfitted at
Russell, and soon were ready to start for Urupukapuka, an island
belonging to Mr. Charles F. Baker, one of the leading citizens of the
town, and said to be the most beautiful of all the hundred and more in
the Bay of Islands.

As we ran down the bay, which afforded views of many of the islands, I
decided that if Urupukapuka turned out to be any more striking than some
we passed, it was indeed rarely beautiful. Such proved to be the case. It
was large, irregular, with a range of golden grassy hills fringed by
dark-green thickets and copses, indented by many coves, and surrounded by
channels of aquamarine water, so clear that the white sand shone through.
We entered the largest bay, one with a narrow opening protected by
another island so that it was almost completely landlocked. The beach of
golden sand and colored sea shells stretched in graceful crescent shape.
A soft rippling surge washed the strand, and multitudes of fish, some of
them mullet, splashed and darkened the shallow waters. The hills came
down to enclose a level valley green with grass and rushes, colorful with
flags and reeds. A stream meandered across the wide space. On the right
side were groves of crimson-flowering trees, the pohutukawa, in Maori.
This tree was indeed magnificent, being thick, tall, widespreading, with
massy clumps of dark-green foliage tipped by crimson blossoms. Beautiful
as was this side of the bay, I decided to pitch camp on the other.

The hillside there was covered with a wonderful growth of the tree ferns,
which plant has given New Zealand the name Fernland; a tall palmetto-like
tree which the men called cabbage trees; and lastly tall marvelous
titrees. These stood up above close-woven thickets of the same flora. The
foliage was very fine, lacy, dark green, somewhat resembling hemlock, and
having a fragrance that I can describe only as being somewhat like cedar
and pine mingled. How exquisitely strange and sweet! Trees and their
beauty and fragrance have always been dear to me. The hills back of the
bay were mostly bare, graceful, high, covered with long golden grass that
waved in the wind.

These were my first impressions of our camp site on Urupukapuka. How
inadequate they were! But first impressions always are lasting. These of
mine I gathered were to grow.

When Mr. Alma Baker arrived, he pitched his camp under the
crimson-flowered pohutukawas across from our place at the edge of the
titrees. We worked all day at this pleasant and never-wearying task of
making a habitation in wilderness. Never am I any happier than when so
engaged. This nomad life is in the blood of all of us, though many
comfort-loving people do not know it.

After dinner we climbed the high hill on our side. Fine-looking woolly
sheep baa-ed at us and trotted away. The summit was a grassy ridge, and
afforded a most extraordinary view of islands and channels and bays, the
mainland with its distant purple ranges, and the far blue band of the
sea. It was all wonderful, and its striking feature was the difference
from any other place I had ever seen. Seven thousand miles from
California! What a long way to come, to camp out and to fish, and to
invite my soul in strange environment! But it was worth the twenty-six
days of continuous travel to get there. I gathered that I would not at
once be able to grasp the details which made Urupukapuka such a contrast
from other places I had seen. The very strangeness eluded me. The low
sound of surf had a different note. The sun set in the wrong direction
for me, because I could not grasp the points of the compass.
Nevertheless, I was not slow to appreciate the beauty of the silver-edged
clouds and the glory of golden blaze behind the purple ranges. Faint
streaks or rays of blue, fan-shaped spread to the zenith. Channels of
green water meandered everywhere, and islands on all sides took on the
hues of the changing sunset.

I was too tired to walk farther, so I sat down on the grassy hill, and
watched and listened and felt. I saw several sailing hawks, some white
gulls, and a great wide-winged gannet. Then I heard an exquisite bird
song, but could not locate the bird. The song seemed to be a combination
of mocking-bird melody, song-sparrow and the sweet, wild, plaintive note
of the canyon swift. Presently I discovered I was listening to more than
one bird, all singing the same beautiful song. Larks! I knew it before I
looked up. After a while I located three specks in the sky. One was
floating down, wings spread, without an effort, like a feather. It was a
wonderful thing to see. Down, down he floated, faster and faster,
bursting his throat all the while, until he dropped like a plummet to the
ground, where his song ended. The others circled round higher and higher,
singing riotously, until they had attained a certain height; then they
poised, and began to waft downwards, light as wisps of thistledown on the
air. I had never before seen larks of this species. They were imported
birds, as indeed many New Zealand birds are. I 'hey were small in size.
The color I could not discern. What gentle, soft music! It was elevating,
and I was reminded of Shakespeare's sonnet: "Hark! hark! the lark at
heaven's gate sings."

They sang until after dark; and in the gray dawn, at four o'clock, they
awoke me from sound slumber. I knew then I had found a name for this
strange new camp. Camp of the Larks!



Chapter IV


HUNTING THE BIG GAME FISH

Both of my two boatmen were experienced at the New Zealand game of sea
fishing. Arlidge was an engineer and Williams was a whaler. Both had been
through the World War. In fact Captain Mitchell's two men had also had
that experience. They could tell some yarns about that fight. Warne had
been a cripple on the deck of a hospital ship which was torpedoed by the
Germans. He was one of the few to be saved out of hundreds of sick and
wounded soldiers. Those Germans left a record no civilization can ever
forget. Evolution, the progress of mankind, the development of soul were
left entirely out of their reckoning. How could they ever do anything but
fail?

A circumstance related by one of the boatmen fascinated me. He was
watching a torpedo, like a graceful, gliding fish with a white wake, come
straight for the ship upon which he stood. How terrible it must have been
to see!

Williams, the whaler, was a man nearing middle age, a brawny, powerful
fellow who looked as if he could gaff and hold a heavy fish. And it
certainly turned out that he could.

These men were all bewildered with my array of fishing tackle. They had
never dreamed of such gear, and were tremendously interested. Like all
good fishermen, they were boys at heart.

The second morning after our arrival in camp I was up before five. The
tranquil bay, the burst of melody from the larks, the soft rose and pearl
of the sky, the bleating of sheep from the hills--these and the many other
details of my environment were exceedingly heart-satisfying. At six-thirty
we were off toward the fishing grounds. Mr. Baker's boat had not arrived
and he said he wanted to work around camp and overhaul his tackle. We
ran among islands little and big, rocky and wooded, grassy and green,
and on out the winding channel into the sea. Still we did not yet lose
the land. A mountain range rose on our right, and terminated in Cape
Brett, one of the great promontories of New Zealand. It was rugged and
bold, showing the hard contact with wind and sea. A white lighthouse
towered on the steep slope, a lonely sentinel, significant of the
thoughtfulness of men.

We ran out to Bird Rock, which was a ragged black ledge rising a hundred
feet or more above the thundering surge. This island was about even with
the cape. Farther out was Piercy Island, a magnificent mountain of rock,
begirt by a white wreath of foam.

Flocks of small white black-headed gulls were flying above a school of
working fish that ruffled the water. Here and there were other patches,
large as an acre. The place looked fishy, and here the boatmen began
trolling with hand-lines for bait. They used a small gig, dark in color,
shaped like a canoe, which they called a dummy. I rigged up a light
tackle and put over a spoon, which the boatmen claimed would not be
looked at by the kahawai. As luck would have it, however, I was the first
to hook and land a kahawai. It was a lively fish, gray and green in
color, shaped somewhat like a salmon. It had large scales. The mouth was
small and delicate, which fact I soon saw accounted for the number of
kahawai hooked and lost.

The fish were not biting well, so the boatmen ran out to Piercy Island,
perhaps a matter of two miles. It towered just off the cape and was
indeed an imposing spectacle. Black rock, green bush, wheeling gannets,
white surf, roar and boom--all these thrilling things were old and
familiar yet ever new.

When we ran under the looming shadow of this huge monument I laid aside
my rod. That action was a considerable tribute for me to pay any place. I
saw gray patches of fish on the surface, acres of kahawai. They all swam
head out of the water, closely pressed together, and sending up little
bursts of spray. Suddenly there was a white splash across the school,
swift as light, and then a crash of water as thousands of kahawai leaped
to escape some prowling enemy. This place did look fishy. My boatmen
began to hook and haul away on kahawai but they lost three fish to one
they landed. The hooks were too small and sharp, and the men pulled too
hard.

As we ran closer under the rock, near the line of black shadow, the water
showed beautifully clear. There was not any perceptible swell in this
protected lee. Riding the surface were hundreds of fish of varying
hues, most striking of all being a wonderful cerise. Then there
were purple fish, yellow fish, and gray kahawai, all scattered
everywhere. The boatmen gave me the Maori names of these fish, but these
names were so similar and so long and strange that I could not remember
them. Besides, they surely were not the proper names. Fish and birds in
different places usually have local names but there is really only one
correct name for any species. The boatmen called a shearwater, the kind I
have seen all over the Pacific, a mutton bird.

Toward the end of Piercy Island a grand cave, the largest and highest I
remember, ran through the rock in a tunnel fully a hundred yards long. It
looked forbidding and dark, but it was really easy to run through. Even
in the darkest part, where the water looked black, I saw the pale gleams
of fish. On the outside, where the sea piled up on the cliffs, there was
thunderous roar.

Practically all the fishing by anglers had been done near and around this
rock. No anglers had ever run out to sea to any extent; and trolling,
such as is the practice of American anglers, was practically unknown. The
use of teasers behind the boat had never been heard of; and the fact of
drawing Marlin swordfish up to the surface was quite incomprehensible to
these boatmen.

We put over a couple of teasers and headed out to sea. The morning was
fresh, cool, pleasant, with scarcely a ripple on the water. There was a
slow swell running. We passed some shearwater ducks, and then a flock of
large gannets. They looked like boobies to me, being large and
long-winged, with yellow heads, bodies mostly pure white, and wings
black-edged. We ran out four or five miles, until the shore line to the
north showed rather low and dim. Cape Brett, however, loomed up black and
clear, a reliable landmark for fishermen to watch.

We saw a big black fin, which even at a distance I knew to belong to a
hammer-head shark. I did not have any particular yearning to catch him,
but as sharks were counted by the New Zealand anglers and as I was in
need of work, I dropped him a kahawai. He promptly took it, and I as
promptly hooked him. I got about five minutes of work out of the loggy
creature when he bit my line off; whereupon Captain Mitchell ran up, and
seeing the shark surfacing again he handed him a bait.

Presently I had the pleasure of seeing the Captain hard at work with bent
rod. I left him then and ran on out to sea. In an hour or more he caught
up with my boat, and sure enough had the hammer-head on the stern.
"Hooked him in the tail!" yelled the Captain; and I called back, "All
right, Lucky Mitchell!" That sobriquet of Lucky I had once given to Frank
Stick, and it surely was deserved; but as Stick was not in the Captain's
class for luck I had to switch the honor.

We ran around outside for several hours without seeing any fish, and then
headed back toward the cape. Presently I saw a swordfish jump, and I
called out. The fish leaped three times. He was fully a mile away. We
turned back and ran out at full speed. When we reached the place where I
thought he had jumped we slowed down, and I began to troll a bait I had
cut from a kahawai. My boatmen looked skeptical; but we had not completed
our second circle when Arlidge let out a great yell and dived for the
right teaser. Then I saw a big Marlin seize the teaser, break it off and
throw it out. I let my bait back. He followed us, a wavering dark shape,
coming closer, then dropping back, and again sheering toward us. I
slacked off more line, and had a comfortable assurance this fish would
bite. He was hungry, and he did bite, a good, hard, hungry tug. I let him
run a hundred feet, and then struck. How those boatmen yelled! Captain
Mitchell ran close. But the Marlin did not leap; he came up presently,
made a swirl on the surface, and got free of the hook. I judged him to be
a large Marlin, around three hundred pounds. The disappointment was keen,
of course, but there was much satisfaction in having raised him by the
teasers.

After that we trolled around for a couple of hours without raising a
fish; then we went in to the cape, where we found six other boats all
fishing by the drifting method, and quite close together. I began to make
observations with much curiosity and great interest. My boatmen caught a
kahawai, hooked it through the back and dropped it overboard, letting out
about seventy feet of line. Then we drifted. I did not feel that anything
much would happen, so I contented myself with watching the other boats. I
wondered about the long light rods, especially the native wood, tanekaha.
Through my binoculars I could see anglers, rods, reels and lines quite
distinctly. The tackle looked hopelessly inadequate, wholly miscast, as
they say in motion pictures. But I was out to see and learn, and I was
not preoccupied with my own ideas.

By and by somebody yelled, and we saw by the commotion on one of the
boats that a fish of some kind had taken a bait. I waited. The boat was
quite near. Finally the angler elevated his rod. How amazing to me that
he did not strike! The rod bent a little, the line ran out, and the
boatman headed his boat away from the scene of disturbance. Presently the
fish came up, a Marlin of average size, and began what my boatmen called
"breaching". That is the whaler's term for a whale breaking on the
surface. This Marlin did not perform as do our California Marlin. He
leaped about half out, and threshed on the surface while the boatman ran
the boat away in the opposite direction.

"Now they'll lose that fish pronto," I soliloquized. And sure enough they
did.

During the next two hours I saw two other swordfish lost in the same way.
Another angler, fast to another fish, drifted away almost out of sight. I
heard next day that he caught his, a small Marlin. Small in those waters
meant one hundred and seventy-five pounds, as the smallest ever caught
weighed one seventy-one.

Nothing happened to me. I was amazed to find after three hours that my
kahawai was still alive and apparently little the worse for the brutal
way in which he had been handled. I let him go and watched him swim away;
then we ran back to camp.

It was indeed a pleasant camp to return to. We got back at six, when the
sun was still above the hills, and the valley seemed full of golden
lights and purple shadows. There was no wind; not a ripple on the bay.
The larks were holding a concert. We had a supper that was most
satisfying to me, after a week of traveling through cities and villages
where I could not get the kind of home cooking I like. And that sunset!
As I sat in camp, I felt that it was indeed good to be alive. My face
felt warm from the heat of the sun. At dark we went to bed. When I looked
out of my tent window I could see the Southern Cross and the Pointers
that pointed to it. How strange and beautiful! This constellation of the
southern hemisphere is more famous with mariners than the Dipper or other
heavenly bodies, except perhaps Polaris.

I was up before sunrise. The grass held a thick coating of dew so thick
my shoes were wet very quickly. The dew glistened from every blade and
rush and leaf. The windless night accounted for such a precipitation.

At seven-thirty we were on the fishing ground near Bird Island, trolling
for bait. Captain Mitchell had his teasers out, and suddenly he yelled
and pointed! I looked in time to see a Marlin back of the left teaser.
The Captain had no bait ready, so lost a good chance for a strike. Again
we ran out to sea. There was quite a goodly swell and a ripple, making it
fine for trolling. I expected results. We made for outside, and went
fully twelve miles. I sighted two sunfish, recognizing them easily by the
peculiar side movement of the big fin. The other boat sighted a mako, but
ran too close and put it down. On the return we traveled at quite a clip,
too fast to troll, but I let out the teasers. From my place on deck I
soon saw a waving purple fin, off to the starboard, and yelling to the
boatmen I hurried aft; but I did not get to the teasers as quick as the
swordfish. Four Marlin, one of them a monster, rushed the teasers; and
two of them got hold. I pulled one teaser away while Arlidge pulled the
other. Meanwhile Williams had dropped a kahawai overboard, with my hook
in it; and as a Marlin rushed for it I grasped the rod hurriedly to get
the tangled line clear. Just in time! The Marlin took that big
six-pound bait, and went off with it. I was most curious. What
would he do with it now he had it? Arlidge had thrown the clutch and
we drifted to a stop. The Marlin took a good deal of line. After a while
I decided he had enough, so I struck him. I pulled the big bait away from
him, just as I had imagined I would; but he came back after it, and that
time I let him have it longer than I ever let even a broadbill play with
a bait. Then I hooked him, coming up solid on a taut line. There was
considerable excitement on my boat and on Captain Mitchell's.

The Marlin came out clear, showing himself to be one of the striped
variety and around two hundred pounds in weight. Everybody got busy with
cameras. He did not give us much of an exhibition, coming out only five
times, and the last time not wholly out of the water. I brought him to
the boat in sixteen minutes. He belonged to the same species as those we
catch at Catalina. The little remoras, or sucking fish, were clinging to
him, and dropped off as we hauled him astern.

We trolled about for two hours trying to raise another or find the school
we had raised, but were unsuccessful. Then we made for Piercy Rock.

I found the same boats there as we had seen the day before, all close
together, all drifting with live bait overboard. I tried it again, and
kept my eyes open. Some angler hooked a fish and went off to the north.
The last I saw of him he was miles away. One of the boatmen on another
boat called to us that his angler had fought a mako for two hours, and
had lost it. During my first drift by the rock I saw one boat hook and
lose a fish. Before I left another got fast and ran off with his quarry.
Of course, these anglers could not stop or hold a fish with the kind of
tackle they used. I suppose they made it a process of exhaustion.

Next morning a launch visited our camp and reported that one of the Deep
Water Cove anglers had fought a shark for eight hours. The head and tail
were brought to us for identification. I called it a common sand or
ground shark. It must have weighed over five hundred. I wondered how many
of the heavy fish hooked at Cape Brett and never landed belonged to some
such class. Probably most of them. Drifting with bait deep down could
never be anything but shark fishing. At least most of the fish hooked
would be sharks of some variety.

During our first two days' fishing we had raised six Marlin, one of which
I caught. That looked favorable for trolling with teasers. This first
Marlin weighed two hundred and twenty-six pounds, a long, slim, graceful
fish. The largest of those we raised was twice the size of this one.

Late afternoon of the second day was calm and still--not a stir in the
titrees nor a ripple on the bay. The water reflected the rose-red trees
and the golden hills in an effect that seemed more like a fairy
enchantment than mirrored sea and land. After supper I climbed the hill
to watch the sunset and the moonrise. The breathless stillness was
something entirely new in my experience near the sea. No sound of surf!
No moaning out on the bar! As the white moon soared above the hill the
slopes and swales of grass took on a silver tint. I lingered to see and
feel until I was so sleepy I could stay awake no longer.

Morning came, still, soft, rosy, balmy, colorful. Larks, up with the
break of day, poured forth their perfect melodies. The grass was heavy
with dew. Mullet and garfish were breaking the surface of the still water
near the beach. Wide circles waved away and disappeared.

Beyond the bay the ocean, placid and smooth, resembled a mill pond. There
was, however, a long low scarcely perceptible swell, which my watchful
eyes detected. We ran out to the rocks for bait, and caught half a dozen
kahawai in as many minutes. I saw a huge kingfish, so the boatman called
it. He came up and lunged for a kahawai on the trolling line, making a
sousing splash at the boat. If he was not a regular old yellowtail,
belonging to the family seriola, then I missed my classification. The
boatmen call this species kingfish; but kingfish belong to the mackerel
family, and there was no mackerel about this fish. He looked to weigh
close to a hundred, and made me keen to catch one.

Outside of Cape Brett we found the sea one vast, glassy expanse. What a
day to hunt for broadbill swordfish! I had not seen a better day in all
my swordfishing at Catalina. Moreover, the air was pleasant, the shore
line strikingly clear. I did not expect to see a broad-bill swordfish,
but I certainly could not help looking for one on such a sea as that.
Birds were scarce. There was no sign of small fish on the surface. We ran
out several miles, and all the while I perched on the deck, scanning the
sea near and far, all at once I saw fins. I called out and stood up. We
thought the fins belonged to a Marlin. Then we saw two more fish farther
on, and formed the same conclusion about them. Suddenly the one nearest
came up higher, showing his dorsal fin. I stared. I could not believe my
eyes. Surely that brown-hooked rakish leathery dorsal could not belong to
a broadbill swordfish, one of my old gladiator friends way down here in
the Antipodes! But it did.

"Broadbill!" I yelled in wild excitement. "Look!...Three broadbills!"

Leaping for my tackle, I called for Arlidge to run around in front
of the nearest fish. "Careful!" I warned. "Not too close!" At that
he got close enough to scare a Catalina broadbill out of a year's
growth, but the consequence was not so dire here. Williams threw
hook baited with an eight-pound kahawai hooked through the back. I
deplored that, but it was too late. I let out a hundred feet of line. The
swordfish came on at my left, not quite an equal distance away. We glided
ahead of him, and I dragged the bait fairly close to his path. Suddenly
he saw it. He dove. I waited tensely. Indeed, the others on board were
tense, too. Nothing happened. I thought he had passed us by. Then he
swirled up, showing half his bronze body, huge, glistening. I thrilled
all over. He had lunged for the bait. I knew he would hit it, and so I
called out. Did he hit it? Well, he nearly knocked the rod out of my
hands. How that peculiar switching up of the line made me tremble! No
other fish in the sea can give a line that motion.

The swordfish struck again, again, and the fourth time. It was great. I
could scarcely realize the truth. Then he took the bait and made off
slowly at first, then increasing his speed until he was going fast and my
line was whizzing off the reel. When we had half of it off, two hundred
and fifty yards, I shut down on the drag, and as R.C. would say, "handed
it to him".

In a moment more I knew I was hooked to a real old Xiphias gladius. He
came up and showed his enormous shoulders, his high dorsal and half of
his tail. Then he sounded.

The fight began, and, as I wanted to excite these boatmen who had
scarcely ever heard of a broadbill, I performed rather violently and
strenuously, which soon told upon me. I got out of breath and slacked up,
until the fish ran out the line. He went down deep, which was
disappointing as I wanted him to do some surface stunts. He never showed
again. In half an hour I was wet with sweat and thoroughly warmed up. I
fought him hard. Long before the hour passed I knew I had on a very heavy
swordfish. I could not do much with him, though sometimes it appeared I
had the mastery. At the hour-and-three-quarters mark I shut down on the
drag and let him pull. Here I found to my surprise that he could tow the
boat. It was not a small boat, either. That, I knew, would be hard on
him; and thereafter, when I needed a rest, I let him drag us a bit.
Three-quarters of an hour of this sort of thing wore him out to the
extent that I was soon getting line back and daring to hope for the best.
He was so enormously heavy that I could not lift him more than a foot or
so at each pump of the rod. He had been down a thousand feet. All this
fight had taken place with the fish at a great depth, which was new in my
experience. But every broadbill teaches you something new. Finally I was
lifting this swordfish, beginning to feel assured that I might get him,
when the hook began to rip. I felt it rip--rip--and come out! I reeled in
the long line without saying a word. The boatman felt the loss even more
keenly than I. Yet I could not help deploring the usual manifestation of
my exceedingly miserable luck as a fisherman; particularly in this
instance, because the capture of the greatest game fish of all the Seven
Seas here in the Bay of Islands waters of New Zealand would have meant
much toward the development of the resort.

Later in the day I sighted a big Marlin fin on the surface of a swell;
and that pleased me, for it proved that these New Zealand swordfish ride
the swells the same as in other waters.

About three o'clock we ran in to the cape, and took to drifting, along
with the other boats. Here again I rested while I was fishing (which was
quite unique for me) and at the same time I kept close watch on the other
boats, my glass bringing them right under my eyes. We let tide and wind
take us at their will; and when we got half a mile or so off the rock we
would run back and drift over again. During three of these drifts, of
about an hour's duration each, I saw four boats lose fish, Marlin I was
sure. One boat went out to sea with a fish, and I did not see what
happened. Later we learned the angler of this boat caught his Marlin. I
saw two anglers of another boat hook a fish on two rods. Despite this
they ran off with the fish. Finally I got so curious to see the result
that I had my boatmen follow. When we came upon the two anglers they had
brought up a two-hundred-pound mako and at the moment were quite busily
engaged. They had harpooned the fish. I saw the huge iron sticking out.
The boatman was beating the mako over the head with a hammer, and another
man was stabbing at the fish with what looked like a narrow spade. My
conclusion was that the mako was not having a very happy time. He
certainly had no opportunity to make what we anglers call a grand finish.
This mako, the first I ever saw, and then did not have a good look at it,
appeared to be a wild game fish. I grew more interested to catch one and
see for myself what were its fighting qualities and its particular
physical features.

As we ran back to camp the sky was overclouded, and the wind keen. It
came off the land and threatened storm. By nightfall a strong breeze was
blowing. If we had not been so well protected by hills we might have had
to hold down our tents. At intervals during the night I awoke to thrill
at the sound of the wind, strange in this far-away country. When I
crawled out at dawn my first observation was that the grass was dry. Not
a drop of dew! My second observation was that neither wind nor lowering
sky affected the larks. What melody! There must have been half a dozen
right around camp, singing to make me remember the beauty of the new day
and joy there is in life.

When we got outside of Piercy Rock that morning we found a choppy sea and
one most uncomfortable to fish. Captain Mitchell lagged behind for some
reason or other, so I slowed down and waited. When he came up I found
the reason was that he had caught a Marlin, his very first, a fair-sized
fish. I whooped my congratulations ending with, "Lucky Mitchell!"

We trolled that rough sea for several hours. No fins! No fish! Birds were
plentiful, but they were wheeling around as if searching as hopelessly as
we were. About eleven o'clock we ran in behind Piercy Rock. Seven other
boats were there drifting. Schools of kahawai were shining on the
surface, and flocks of gulls hovered near, sometimes alighting on the
water, in the thick of the schools, evidently feeding on the tiny minnows
the kahawai were chasing. The surge against the beetling cliffs was
magnificent. Roar and crash and boom! Then a white cascade came pouring
down from the bronze slant of rock, to disappear in the great gulf left
by the receding swell. Soon the surge heaved in again, to swell and grow
and mount high, and go crashing to ruin. Restless and eternal sea! How it
chafed the rocks! Those great cliffs really looked impervious to the
contending tide; but a second glance showed that the sea was wearing away
the rock and in time, in the ages to come, would conquer.

One boatman passing us called to Williams that he had lost a Marlin. So
this made eight or nine I had recorded in three days, out of eleven
hooked.

By the time we had completed our first drift I had developed conclusions.
I knew that Marlin or some other large fish were working along with the
schools of kahawai, every now and then making a charge from underneath,
which caused the kahawai to leap crashing on the surface. So I instructed
my boatmen to keep near one of these schools, and I let my bait drift as
close as possible. This was something I had not observed a single one of
the other boats doing, yet it seemed the thing to do. Soon I had a strong
pull on my line. My bait was ten times too large, and the hook was also
large, at least for Marlin. So when I struck, it did not surprise me that
I missed. I slacked the bait and sure enough the Marlin took it again.

This time I let him have it so long that he came up on the surface and
ejected it. But he got tangled up in my line, whereupon began a pretty
exhibition. I was afraid to pull hard for fear of cutting my line. The
fish leaped and threshed and came at the boat. In the vernacular of the
boatmen, he breached twenty-five times. By handling him gently I saved
both fish and line. When we got him fast we discovered my hook and bait
were over a hundred feet from the place on my line where the Marlin had
tangled.

We ran back and caught another kahawai. While beginning another drift one
of the other anglers hooked a fish and started out to sea. It sort of
aggravated me to watch these boats run away with a fish.

Presently I saw another patch of kahawai acting suspiciously, so I
stalked it, and soon had another strike. This fish was easy to hook; and
as there were eight boats near by I exerted myself in my desire to have
them see a rod bent. The result was that I brought this Marlin up in
eleven minutes. He did not jump, which was due to his being badly hooked.
Running back to the rock, I tried again, found another school of kahawai
on the surface, and had another heavy strike. But this fish let go
quickly. He must have felt the hook. Thereupon I called it a day and left
for camp. Captain Mitchell's fish weighed one hundred and ninety-two
pounds, and mine two hundred and fifty-two and two hundred and
eighty-four, respectively. The larger fish was a fine specimen that I had
judged to be around three hundred pounds in weight.

Though the late afternoon was stormy, all the boatmen went to Russell to
see their families, and no doubt to talk fish, especially the broadbill
battle. I could not very well quote some of their exaggerations, though
the temptation is strong. But all of them had come out frankly in
expressing their amazement and admiration and to endorse heartily our
tackle and method.

Some of the anglers we had watched, and boatmen too, apparently did not
know how to proceed when a fish took hold of their bait. I saw one
instance that is worth recording, since it was both funny and tragic.
Four men were in a boat near us. Manifestly a bite had been felt by one
of them, for they all jumped up. The man with the rod held it up high,
but he did nothing else. I saw the long tip bend and then nod. Evidently
the line was paying off the reel. Promptly a fine big swordfish broke
water several hundred feet astern. Then great excitement prevailed. All
the men, except the angler with the rod, ran around in that boat. The
engineer started the boat at full speed, slowed down, turned around, went
fast again, and finally got the swordfish on the other side of the boat.
I did not know what had happened to the angler, but I saw him leap up,
trying to hold the long rod. It jerked down, bent to the water and then
under the boat. In an instant more it sprang back straight. Then angler
stood bewildered, while one of his comrades began to thread the broken
line through the guides. All this happened in a half a minute or so.
After it had happened they all sat down, probably for a conference. I
wanted much to run over there and give them some instructions, but I
managed to refrain.

My largest swordfish, two hundred and eighty-four pounds, had four fish
in his gullet, two kahawai, a small blue shark, and a snapper fully seven
pounds in weight. This last had a round hole straight through his body.
Unquestionably, it had been made by the bill of the swordfish. The
snapper had not been struck a side blow in the usual way Marlin kill or
stun their prey; he had been rammed straight through. This was proof
that the spearfish, or Marlin, can and do ram fish. No doubt they ram
their enemies in battle, as the broadbills do.

An incident of the day that pleased me immensely was to run across a
market-fishing boat manned by two sturdy dark-faced fishermen; a sloop,
scarred by sea and weather, and with the name Desert Gold on the stern.
We ascertained that it had been named after my book Desert Gold, the same
as had one of the greatest race-horses ever bred in the Antipodes. I was
touched, proud, tremendously pleased. I had met with innumerable
instances of kindly recognition from my reading public in the Antipodes,
but to discover an old sailboat, under the beetling brow of Cape Brett,
named with one of my own book titles, was something singularly affecting
to me. Those fishermen never guessed the true state of my feelings.



Chapter V


BOUNTY FROM THE SEA

The boatmen told me this story about a mako fight that seems incredible.
Yet they staked their word on it, and offered confirmation from others. A
mako took a kahawai, was hooked and fought awhile. He tore free from the
hook, and in plain sight took another bait thrown to him. Then the battle
went on again for an hour or more, when he broke the line. He came up
near the boat. They threw him another kahawai and he took that. This time
the tackle held and he was landed, a fish of over three hundred pounds.

I have heard some fish stories in my day, and this one ranks high. But I
believe it. I have known such strange facts myself, really stranger than
any homespun fabrications. The most bewilderingly preposterous and
stunning fish stories sometimes are true.

On the afternoon of our fourth day the threatening weather developed into
a storm. Next day we found a rough sea and squalls of rain, but we
persevered for a while. Captain Mitchell hooked some kind of a heavy
beast, as he called it, that soon got away; and later he raised a big
kingfish to the teasers. This was the third he had brought up. I had no
luck whatever, and about noon, when the wind increased to a gale, I ran
in, and the Captain soon followed.

On and off it rained and blew all the afternoon. We had trouble holding
down the tents until they got throughly wet. During the night, at
intervals, the storm awoke me. The sound of surf, the wind in the
titrees, the patter of rain, all were singularly pleasant. By morning the
storm had passed and the larks were proclaiming the fact with joy.

The promise of a fine day was not fulfilled, however, and outside the
islands the sea was lumpy, bumpy, humpy, and reflected leaden clouds. At
rare intervals the sun came out, the sea turned blue, and there seemed to
be some sense in fishing. These intervals, however, were few and far
between. I was in for a hard day. Many, many of them have I had. The way
to fish is to keep your bait in the water, and keep on going, or casting,
or sitting still on a log, whatever the particular method of the hour,
until you get a bite.

The Alma G., though the best craft in Russell, was an uncomfortable boat.
Her motions were sudden. She w as a cross between a V bottom and a round
bottom. I had to hold on to my seat, hour after hour, and to my rod also.
I trolled until one o'clock without sign of fish or strike. Then I
climbed on deck to look for birds or anything. We were miles out.
Gradually we worked back toward the cape.

At last we reached the shelter of Piercy Island. Four boats were drifting
on the lee side of the great rock. We caught a live kahawai and began to
fish. The sun shone now and then, the wind blew a gale about as often.
Two more hours passed, negative for me. No, not altogether that, for the
smallest and prettiest gull I ever saw alighted on my boat, quite close
to me, and regarded me with bright, friendly eyes. He had fluffy
feathers, like spindrift, white as snow with a few specks of black.
Presently he walked aft and perched upon the deck. Next, a bird I
classified as a sooty shearwater swam up to us. He, too, was small and
round, but precisely the hue of soot. The boatmen fed him bits of fish
and then Williams reached down, picked him up and set him on the combing.
I was amazed and delighted. New Zealand birds were indeed tame. This one
looked insulted at having his feathers ruffled, but he did not show any
fright.

Upon turning the corner of Piercy Rock I discovered Captain Mitchell
frantically engaged with a Marlin swordfish that was running and jumping
toward the cliff. I hurried to get my camera. When I came out with it I
was just in time to see the swordfish make a long, high leap that ended
against the stone wall. He splintered his spear, which I saw fly into
bits. He ejected the bait and also the hook. Then hanging there in a
niche, he floundered and beat and flapped until he slid back into the
surge.

There did not appear to be any lee side to the island, as the wind
whipped round all sides and increased in strength until nothing could
keep its place in the boat, nor I safely hold my chair. So we beat back
to camp.

When Captain Mitchell returned he expressed himself forcibly: "Rotten
day! I saw four Marlin, and had two strikes. The second one after you
left. We saw a big Marlin on the surface, and we ran ahead of him with a
bait. He took it and swam off in plain sight, trying to get it in his
mouth. I let him go with it. Then when I struck the hook didn't catch.
The Marlin took the bait again, and though I let him have it a long time
I couldn't hook him. Those kahawai are too big. They're a darned
nuisance. There was a splendid fish, hungry as a wolf, and I missed him!"

"Right-o', as these boatmen say", I replied. "This kahawai bait is too
large for anything but sharks. It is the wrong bait for swordfish. And
this method of drifting is wrong. We've got to find a suitable bait and a
better method. Weather permitting, we can troll, of course."

The situation indeed presented some perplexities. I was satisfied that
the waters along the New Zealand coast were alive with these great game
fish, and no doubt fish that were new and equally formidable. We had
discovered in calm weather we could find broad-bill and also raise
Marlin. These facts were significant and inspiring. But the whole job was
a pioneering one and must take time, hard work and infinite patience.

That night I surely did not see the stars. With sky pitch-black, and
strong southwest winds, it appeared the storm was not over. Morning broke
calm, however, with rosy sky and placid bay; and we were in high hopes
again. Yet by the time we got out to Cape Brett the sky had grown
overcast, the sea ruffled and white. Behind the huge castle-like island
there was a lee of considerable extent, where we proposed to fish a
little despite the storm. Gale and sea grew more violent. The mainland
was lost in a haze of rain. Around the yellow cliffs the surges rose
grandly and burst with sullen boom. What a cork at the mercy of the sea
seemed our boat! I began to try to convince myself that we should run in
before the storm increased, and just then I saw a Marlin fin.

We followed him, trolling a bait, got ahead of him, and had the fun and
excitement of seeing him swerve swiftly and flash green as he seized it.
The other boat drew near. My Marlin swam on with the big bait plainly
visible between his jaws. Captain Mitchell thought the swordfish had
passed my bait, and tried to give him his. It took some yelling to show
the Captain his error. Finally, some one in his boat saw the swordfish
with my bait. At last I grew impatient, and jerked the bait away from
that nonchalant beggar; then he rushed it.

I hooked the Marlin before he had time to swallow the bait, with a result
I expected. He leaped. He plunged. He rose half out of the water and
plowed over the sea directly at Captain Mitchell's boat. Those on board
had some chances with cameras at close range, for my swordfish came out
twenty-three times. After that he sounded. Then in rather short order I
brought him in.

When we reached Piercy Rock again there were four other boats about,
one of them Mr. Alma Baker's with Sid, the boatman of local fame.
The sun was shining and the wind had abated, all happenings in such very
short order that I thought after all the day might turn out well.

As soon as we secured another bait Arlidge sighted a mako. We trolled the
bait in front of him. He shot under; and in another moment I felt a
strong tug, then a run. When I struck I waited breathlessly to see the
mako leap, but he did not. I found him fast and powerful. Nevertheless, I
soon had him in for Williams to gaff. Then pretty quickly I learned
something about mako! He put up a terrific battle, broke one gaff, soaked
us through with water, and gave no end of trouble. The boatmen wanted to
harpoon him, but this I would not allow. Such a game fish should be given
the same sporting chance afforded to others. Eventually we subdued the
mako and hauled him aboard, to find ourselves two miles out to sea.

That was the beginning of a day too full to be wholly recorded. The wind
ceased, then blew hard again; the sun shone, then became obscured by
clouds; the sea was both rough and smooth.

One of the Deep Water Cove anglers hooked a fish quite near us. I
watched. Suddenly a blue-and-white fish shot into the air, high, higher,
as if propelled by a catapult.

"Mako! Mako!" the boatmen yelled.

The mako turned over, cut the water like a knife and went out of sight;
then leaped again, this time still more wonderfully. Down he went, slick,
like a champion diver. Up again, high--fully thirty feet! I shouted in my
excitement. He turned clear over in the air, and slid down into the sea.
He did not show again.

"Well, that mako is some fish!" I ejaculated. And the boatmen were loud
in their praise of what they consider their gamest fish.

During the next hour I saw three boats hooked to fish, all at the same
time. Alma Baker's fish took him out to sea.

I saw another angler break one of the long limber rods. Captain Mitchell
broke a line on another fish. We saw half a dozen Marlin tails during the
afternoon. I got a bait in front of one fish. He charged it, but refused
to bite. Three times he did this. He was pugnacious but not hungry. These
Marlin had fed and were on their way out to sea, which is their habit in
all waters.

It took the angler three hours to land his mako. During that time several
other anglers lost fish. Captain Mitchell had a Marlin get fast in a loop
of his leader and pull free at the boat.

About four o'clock I had a tremendous strike. When I hooked the fish
Williams had a strike on my other rod, which he was holding. We though
there were two fish. But after half an hour of hard work we found I had
hooked the Marlin, and Williams had got it tangled in his leader.

Not counting three I landed, I saw ten fish hooked, and of these three
brought in. My Marlin weighed two hundred and fifty-four and two hundred
and eighty-five pounds respectively, and the mako two hundred and
fifty-eight.

It did not take more than one quick glance at my mako, when I saw him out
of the water, to pronounce him a remarkable, a terrible and even a
beautiful fish.

No doubt ichthyologists would relegate him to the shark family, and I was
compelled to do that also, but I never saw a shark before with any of
this one's marked features. He actually had something of the look of a
broadbill swordfish without the sword. Dark on the back, white
underneath, round and massive of body clear down to the tail, with the
flattened side protuberances very marked, thick to the juncture with the
flukes, he indeed gave a first impression of being some relation to old
Xiphias gladius.

It was in the head and tail that he differed so essentially from a
broadbill, or any other kind of fish. The head resembled a bullet, coming
to a sharp point, long and slim. The eyes were large, protruding and most
singularly harmonious, with the huge jaw set far back and armed with the
most formidable array of teeth nature could devise. They were long,
crooked, white, sharp as needles, and many of them set irregularly. In
life these teeth had the physical property of moving to and fro, like the
teeth of a reaper. The boatmen claimed that when the mako lost a tooth he
developed a new one very quickly, and that he had rows of them in reserve
in the jaws.

The tail was a beautiful thing, spade-like, only curved, graceful,
symmetrical. The upper lobe was larger, with a tiny notch on the upper
outside; the lower lobe almost oval in shape, as were the dorsal fins.
The pectoral fins were long, wide, massive.

Here was a sea creature, an engine of destruction, developed to the nth
degree. I had never seen its like. Even an orca could not do any more
ravaging among sea fish. Every line of this mako showed speed and power
to a remarkable degree. He had five long, deep gill slits on each side of
his neck. I was amazed and fascinated by this new fish. Mr. Morton, a New
Zealander, who accompanied us as a motion-picture camera man, explained
how the Maoris used to capture the mako, the teeth of which they prized
most highly. The natives took spears, a rope, and a very long pole, and
went in a canoe to places known to them to be infested with mako. A sting
ray or skate was fastened on the end of the long pole and then was thrust
down into water, in and out, until it had excited a mako. When they had
teased the mako up to the canoe, which was easy, for this fish does
not fear man, they manipulated the skate so that the mako in rolling
over and turning for it would give the Maoris a chance to throw a
noose over its tail. With this fast to the fish they had a swift
and precarious ride. When they wanted to turn the canoe they got
in the center. The weight all at one point in the center caused these
Indian canoes to swerve. They would seldom Upset. By such dexterous means
the Maoris tired out the mako and dispatched it with spears. I could not
help but contrast their courage and enterprise with the Indians along the
Mexican coast, who were afraid to venture out on the sea.

The fourth day of the blow was the worst of all. Still we went fishing.
As before, there was a lee on the sea side of the islands. It was not so
large as the day previous, nor so smooth, but we managed to make some
kind of shift at fishing. We surely did drift. There were seven boats
altogether. I was the first to raise a Marlin, a fine fish, that ran all
over the place, leaping and smashing the water, and making us follow him
out into the rough sea. I had all I wanted for three-quarters of an hour.
The big swells made fighting the fish a most difficult and laborsome
task.

In the afternoon Captain Mitchell hooked a heavy fish of some kind. I was
near enough to ascertain that. His boatmen began to run away from the
fish. I hurried out there, and found they were doing as I had seen most
of these New Zealand boatmen do. The minute a fish was hooked, they would
run the boat after it. The anglers do not get any chance to fight a fish
in instances of this kind. I shouted for the Captain's men to throw out
the clutch. With the boat stopped Mitchell got down to determined work on
the fish, and it soon showed on the surface, a mako. We ran closer in the
interest of picture-taking. But I was to find that photographing a mako
had its difficulties. It did not seem possible to keep track of the fish.
I heard the boatmen yell, and a second later the crashing plop of the
mako as he fell back from his leap. But I did not see it. Some time after
that he jumped again, too quickly for me to focus upon him. What a clear,
swift, powerful leaper!

Captain Mitchell whipped his mako, after a good hard battle in a bad sea.
The fish had chewed off one of our best wire leaders and would certainly
have escaped but for a loop of the leader being round his tail.

We ran back to discover two other boats engaged on fish of some kind.
Alma Baker was on one of them. Upon going close to him I found he had a
long, slim, ugly blue-colored shark which his boatman was holding by the
leader. I took a picture. I had to bite my tongue to keep from yelling to
that boatman, for I knew he would break the brute off; and he did.

During the rest of the afternoon there were indications of a change in
the weather, which we certainly welcomed. Upon arriving at camp we
weighed our fish. My Marlin tipped the scales at two hundred and
seventy-six, the Captain's mako at two hundred and ninety-four.
The leader was a sight to behold and caused me much concern. We had
prepared especial thirty-foot mako leaders, heavy wire that we had
believed was indestructible. What would we do if we hooked some really
big mako?

The wind kept deceiving us, veering and lulling, blowing a gale at night,
falling in the morning and then rising again. It made heavy seas. On
February fourth I lost two fish, one a hammer-head that first bit my bait
in two, then came back for the second portion. He was cunning and I was
rather careless. There is never any excuse for not hooking a hungry
shark. In this case I did not wait long enough, so that when I struck the
hook did not hold. My second misfortune was on a Marlin of goodly size,
that I worked too strenuously, and the hook pulled out as I brought him
into the boat.

The next day was fine and promising at dawn, but the sun and calm were
only delusions. A northwester sprang up, and blew harder every minute.
There were seven boats out and they had a sorry time of it. Nevertheless
I had a wonderful strike from a Marlin that shot by the boat and came out
in a beautiful leap before I had time to hook him, but the hook held. We
had to chase this fellow out into the rough sea, where I had another hard
battle with fish and swells combined. He took us a mile off Piercy Rock.
One other boat got fast to a Marlin and went out to sea so far that we
lost sight of it altogether. Pretty risky in a small boat! I asked my men
how these fellows would communicate their difficulties if the boat broke
down or they ran short of gasoline. They said there would be no way. No
accidents had happened at this new fishing resort, so the serious side of
the game had not received any consideration.

The gale increased, and I thought it best to run in. Before we got far I
was indeed glad I had started. The sea was running "high, wide and
handsome", as the cowboys sometimes call the bucking of a mean bronco.
The Alma G. proved a seaworthy craft and gave me confidence. Her bow was
under water a good deal of the time, and she became as wet as a duck in
the rain. When we got in the green shallow water the swells ran
tremendously high and swift. They lifted us and sped us forward, so that
with the added celerity we were indeed racing. Exhilarating and thrilling
as that was, I was glad to run in between the first islands to smooth
water. My Marlin was a superb specimen of two hundred and sixty-eight
pounds, long, slim, brilliantly striped and with a very long spear. If he
had been fat he would have weighed far over three hundred.

About supper time a heavy squall swooped down into the bay. We had to
exert ourselves hurriedly and strenuously to keep our camp from blowing
away. Both the launches dragged their anchors and grounded on the
bar at low tide, wherefore the boatmen were most actively engaged during
the gale and a downpour of rain. For me it was all fun. To be out in a
rainstorm always takes me back to boyhood days.

About sunset the clouds broke up into irregular masses, the gale
subsided, patches of vivid blue sky shone through rifts, and an exquisite
light, as if the air were full of dissolved rainbows, began to be
manifest on all sides.

The phenomenon lured me to climb the high slope and wade through the wet
grass to the summit, where I could face the glorious west. Rain blew in
my face, a cool, misty rain that did not obscure my sight, though
evidently it had remarkable effect upon the atmosphere. A strange
transparent medium enveloped earth and sky. The sun had set below a strip
of dark cloud. Behind that the intense blue sky reached to broken cumulus
clouds, purple in mass, edged with silver, shot through with rays of
gold. From this great flare of the west spread the beautiful light over
range and islands, bays and hills. The slopes with their waving grass
were crowned by an amber glow; the bay on the leeward side of the island
was a deep dark green; that on the windward side a white-ridged purple.
From over the far hill thundered the turbulent sea. To the south the
mountains showed dimly through the pall of storm that had passed over the
Bay of Islands. The whole panorama seemed to possess an unearthly beauty,
delicate, ephemeral, veiled by some mysterious light.

To make the moment perfect there were larks above my head, singing as if
the magic of that sunset inspired their song. My searching gaze located
three--one near, scarcely a hundred feet above me; another quite far; and
a third a mere speck in the sky. There were others I could not find.
Those I watched poised fluttering on high, singing such a sweet plaintive
song as was surely never equaled by other bird, both in melody and in
meaning. They were singing in the rain; and to my intense astonishment I
ascertained, quickly in case of the nearer larks and after hard peering
at the third, that they had their heads pointed to the west. This might
have been accident; but I was not one who could deem it so. Nor were they
singing for any other reason save the joy of life! I watched them until
they dropped, wafted straight down, to cease their songs as they neared
the ground. Two of them alighted in the wet grass and did not arise; the
third dropped out of sight behind the hill. Others were near, invisible,
but wonderfully manifest by their music.

Darkness gradually gathered in the valleys of the island, and twilight
fell upon the hill. The glory died out of the west, the intensity of
color away from islands and bays. Rain still fell, mistily, cool, sweet
to the face. When I reached the foot of the slope larks were still
singing somewhere.

All experience must be measured as much by what one brings, to it as by
what it gives. Grassy windy hilltops, above the sea or the valley, always
have enthralled me. They must surely have had strange relation to the
lives of some of my ancestors. This experience on a hilltop of
Urupukapuka, in the Bay of Islands, seemed fraught with unusual
appreciation of nature and clearness of the meaning of life. My fishing
was the merest of incidentals. It must be a means to an end, or one
aspect of an end. How many times, on some adventure in a wild country, or
some fishing jaunt to new waters, have I been rewarded by a singular
revivifying joy, similar to this I found on the wet, grassy top of
Urupukapuka, the rich amber light filling my eyes, and the songs of the
larks in my ears!



Chapter VI


THE LURE OF THE GREAT STRIPED MARLIN

The government weather authorities of Auckland gave out the information
that the gale we had been experiencing was owing to violent disturbances
in the Antarctic. Personally, it was my first conviction that the upset
of the sea occurred at Cape Brett, and right under my boat. I have
attempted to fish some rough waters in my day, but this maelstrom around
Piercy Rock had the distinction of being the worst. There was, however,
one consolation--it beat the rough water of the Gulf Stream at Long Key,
Florida, by a goodly margin. I had imagined the northeast trade-wind of
the Gulf to be about the worst.

Captain Mitchell and I took the Radmores out, one in each boat; and
needless to say we fervently prayed for the gale to lull or that the
Radmores would react naturally and suggest we return to camp. But these
English brothers had not only served in the British Royal Navy; they had
traveled in ships all over the globe. The elder Radmore, who accompanied
me, appeared to enjoy the spindrift flying off the waves into our faces
and the pitching of the boat bow first, and the rocking counter motion
from side to side like a cradle. There were seven other boats out, manned
by anglers and boatmen apparently as crazy to fish as we were. Six hours
of stinging wind, of scudding spray, of tossing seas, of dangerous
ventures near the rocks trying to find calm water where there was none,
of futile fishing and of most annoying and increasing discomfort, were
added to my angling experience that February day. This was the eighth day
of adverse winds and crisscross seas.

The following day we did not trust, for it dawned precisely like the one
before, and a gentle breeze soon developed volume and power, and the low
bank of gray cloud in the southwest soon overcast the sky. Yet at
intervals the wind lulled and the sun shone warm. There were promises of
better weather in a more or less remote future.

Hours in camp, however, were not wasted or idled. There were manifold
tasks, including notes, tackle, photography, letters and exploring the
many ramifications of the beautiful Urupukapuka Island. Though not a
pretty comparison, to liken the island to the shape of an octopus was not
too far-fetched. It had at least a dozen rambling arms, projecting out
into the bay, as if to point toward the other islands. Some of them were
a long way from camp, over grassy hills and down grassy canyons, and then
out on waving undulating grassy ridges to promontories overlooking the
sea.

There was one lonesome horse on the island, and I appeared always to
encounter him on my walks. He regarded me with most evident surprise and
concern; and he either was really wild or wanted me to think so. I
observed, however, that as these meetings increased in number he grew
less inclined to kick up his heels and go galloping off with flying tail
and mane.

The locusts that sang their summer songs during the day were hard to
locate in the titrees. At length, however, I got a glimpse of one, and he
appeared black in color and rather small in size. Huge flies were present
in considerable numbers, always buzzing and humming around when the wind
lulled and the sun came out. They were not otherwise annoying.

We had a glimpse of quail in the reeds of the swale back of camp. I saw
what I believed to be a swamp blackbird. In the dense grove of trees
behind our tents there were sweet-voiced birds, so shy and illusive that
I could not discover what they looked like. Then on a low, level slope I
flushed a skylark out of the grass. It flitted and flapped over the grass
as if it had broken wing, after the deceiving habit of a ruffed grouse
when driven from her nest. This lark had answered to the same instinct,
to lure the intruder away from her little ones. I soon found the tiny
nest deep-seated in a tuft of grass, and surely safe from anything except
the sharp hoof of a sheep. There were three young birds, not long
hatched, with scarcely a feather. I slipped away to a knoll and watched
for the mother bird to return; but evidently she saw me, for she did not
come.

When we hauled a fish up on the beach, to weigh and photograph, there
were always a number of large black-winged gulls that appeared so
suddenly as to make me suspect they had been watching. They might have
been attracted by scent. At any rate, they arrived and they were hungry.
In the mornings, at daylight, I would hear them screaming on the beach,
their notes at once piercing and musical. These gulls, by the way, were
differently marked from any other I had observed.

Captain Mitchell related an adventure which I genuinely envied him. A
giant albatross darted down behind his boat, while he was trolling a
kahawai, and dived at the bait, tugged hard, then let go. Seen at close
range the bird appeared enormous, austere and old, gray and white with
black markings. He had a spread of wings that was incredible. The Captain
let his bait drift back, in hopes that the albatross would take it and
hook himself. What a catch that would have been! But the weird fowl of
Ancient Mariner fame was not to be captured. Ponderously, yet with the
grace of a swallow, he swooped down and circled once more over the bait,
then sailed away with the flight so marvelous and beautiful to see.

Before sunrise the next morning I was up strolling along the beach, where
I had been lured by the still soft dawn. No wind to speak of! It was a
change vastly to my liking. At low tide the sandy crescent beach was
fully a hundred yards wide and thickly strewn with shells. One of my
myriad pastimes is gathering shells cast up by the sea.

This morning, however, my attention was distracted from my pleasant
search by a crash in the water. I looked up in time to see one of the
large white-and-black gannets fly right out of the water. The depth there
could scarcely have exceeded a foot. Multitudes of little fish were
leaping on all sides of the violent place from which the gannet had
emerged. Most assuredly he had dived among them for his breakfast. I
wondered how he could plunge down into that shallow water without killing
himself on the sand.

Whereupon I watched him as he sailed away along shore, circling out
around the boats, to turn back toward me. He was flying some forty or
fifty feet above the water. About opposite my position mullet were
breaking on the surface. No doubt that the gannet saw them! Suddenly he
swooped down until he was scarcely two feet above the water. Then he
bowed his wings and dived; quite the slickest dive imaginable! His white
body gleamed under the water and must have covered a distance of six
feet. Then he came up just as suddenly and in his cruel bill was a
luckless little fish, which he swallowed kicking.

"I doff my hat to you, Mr. Gannet," I said admiringly, and indeed I
suited action to words.

There is never an end to the marvelous things to be seen in nature.
Always new, strange and wonderful things; not always beautiful!
Self-preservation is the first law of nature, but it is a hard bloody
business.

Too good to be true--the change in the weather! The breeze was soft,
and clouds were few. We made skeptical remarks about how the wind
would come up, gather strength and blow the tops off the waves; but it
did not. All day the conditions improved. The gusts grew shorter of
duration and farther apart. Warmer shone the sun. The sea gave evidence
of calming down. It was enough for me to sit in my boat and be grateful
for these welcome facts and smell the fragrant wood smoke that came from
forest fires on the hills.

Twelve boats drifted around Piercy Rock that morning. We saw two Marlin
fins the very first thing, before we had caught a bait. After we did
catch one we could not locate the Marlin. During the morning two fish
were hooked outside the rock, one of which, a small swordfish, I saw
landed.

After lunch I had a strike. When hooked the fish ran three hundred yards
as swiftly as an express train. Then plunging out, he turned straight
back, with like speed. His dorsal fin cut the water for a hundred feet.
Then I lost him. My line went slack. We thought he had broken off, with
all the bag of line he was dragging. I wound in my line up to the double
before I felt him right at the boat.

Then he began to leap, and by the time he had ended his beautiful and
remarkable exhibition of pyrotechnics he had come into the air fifty
times. He made every manner of leap except a somersault. The boatmen used
up all the films on both my cameras. That tremendous burst of energy had
exhausted the swordfish, which I soon landed.

Captain Mitchell had run out to sea, so far we could hardly sight his
boat. When he came in his flag was flying. He yelled something
unintelligible to me about fish, and he looked excited; but not until we
arrived at camp did I get the gist of what had happened. He had lost a
hammer-head, also a Marlin, had another strike, and then caught a
swordfish that went down deep and never rose until he was beaten. Two of
the strikes the Captain got by trolling in front of sighted fish. This
method to me is a sure and fascinating one. With our luck and the change
of weather we were once more happy fishermen. Captain Mitchell's fish
weighed two hundred and ninety-eight pounds and mine two hundred and
thirty.

The weather is always a paramount consideration with a fisherman,
especially he who fishes on the sea. We had one fairly good day, compared
with the last week or so, but that was not by any means calm. Still we
were able to troll out to sea half a dozen miles. We raised a Marlin with
the teasers, and he promptly took my bait. He gave a splendid exhibition
of lofty tumbling and skittering around on his tail, wearing out his
strength so that I subdued him in half an hour. He was the largest fish
so far for me.

Later I had another swordfish smash at the left teaser, but he did
not come back. Following that we espied a hammer-head fin. Remembering
how the two hammer-heads had outwitted me, I tried this one. He bit
readily; nevertheless I could not hook him. Finally he took half my bait
and left. My conclusion was that this species of shark in New Zealand was
very cunning.

Captain Mitchell lost a bait to a fish of some kind, and also fought a
Marlin for a while, only to pull the hook. My Marlin, number nine for me,
weighed an even three hundred pounds, giving me two pounds above Captain
Mitchell's largest, a fact I made much of. "Well, Lucky Mitchell, I'm
getting ahead of you," I averred complacently. "Better watch out, or
I'll beat you as badly as you did me on the Rogue River in Oregon last
fall...Never will forgive your catching seventy-nine steelhead to my
twenty-five!"

That evening in camp was warm and pleasant and still. Ominous clouds in
the west loomed up, however, and in the night a heavy storm broke. How
the wind howled in the titrees and how the rain roared on my tent!

I remember with amusement an article sent me from some New Zealand
newspaper. Two old gentlemen were discussing my visit and particularly
the information that I was absorbing local color at Russell. One of them
asked: "What you figure that air local color to mean, now?" His companion
replied: "Aw, he's gettin' sunburnt. I know, because I've been at
Russell."

Also I received a funny letter from a man who appeared somewhat annoyed
at the tremendous importance apparently given me by the newspapers over
my proposed swordfishing, and the amount of space given my tackle. In
part he wrote: "See here, all this fuss about your coming seven thousand
miles with high-priced new-fangled machinery to catch swordfish is sort
of ridiculous. Sonny, I caught New Zealand swordfish before you were
born, and did it with hairpins, too."

The old gentleman was as irate and sincere as he was ignorant. No doubt
he meant the small silver fish, a few inches long, with a spear-like
snout, my men called garfish and small boys misnamed swordfish; and he
had no knowledge of the great broadsworded king of the seas.

An incident that I often recall as remarkable happened one day when we
were running in from outside and had our flag flying. We stopped to
maneuver round a fish. A big steamship, a freighter, was going to port,
and, seeing our flag and queer movements, the captain altered his course
and bore down upon us until he ascertained we were not flying distress
signals. I appreciated the good captain's loyalty to the code of the sea
and regretted having unwittingly alarmed him.

After nine days of intermittent gales, storms, calms and downpours,
we had a beautiful dawn that promised a beautiful day. Sunrise
was rose and silver, shining on the hills where grazing sheep were
silhouetted against the sky.

For a change we ran north through new channels, between islands different
from those I had watched every day as we went to and fro, and each one
seemed to add something to my growing delight in the wonderful Bay of
Islands.

Outside to the north we found schools of yellowtail around a buoy. They
were small and more suited to use as bait. We caught a dozen quickly.
Some we essayed to keep alive in a large galvanized iron tank I had made
for the purpose. We found that it worked splendidly, though it gave
Arlidge and Pete Williams a lot of excercise with buckets. North from the
buoy stood a large monumental rock called the Ninepin. It reminded me a
little of El Capitan, the great sentinel rock in the Painted Desert of
Arizona. An ocean swell rose green and gold over the base of the Ninepin
and burst into roaring white chaos against the cliff. Contending strife
of sea and rock! It was always present. There were schools of fish round
the Ninepin, but no kahawai. From there we ran straight out to sea ten
miles, which distance brought us some five or six miles off Cape Brett.

At first I thought we were going to have a smooth, glassy sea, and had my
eyes keen for broadbill fins. But a little breeze sprang up, ruffling the
water. Still it was most wonderful compared with the last nine days, and
I was accordingly grateful.

It turned out to be a great fishing day, the details of which were so
many, exciting and confusing that I cannot recall them all. I trolled a
yellowtail. This bait was not satisfactory, but it was better than a
kahawai.

The color of the sea was deep dark blue, almost violet. Fleecy white
clouds now and then shaded the warm sun. The breeze freshened. As I
trolled along, suddenly I espied an albatross wheeling and sailing around
our boat. I watched with absorbed and thrilling delight. During many
years of fishing on the sea I watched many birds, but never so grand a
bird as this albatross. He had the sailing, shooting, rising and falling
triangular flight of a shear-water, with every characteristic of that
bird magnified. I was struck with the amazing fact that here I had the
marvelous privilege of watching the albatross of the Antarctic. Truly I
was far from home. Early in the day I raised a Marlin, to be
disappointed that the hook did not catch. Not long afterward, the teasers
lured another from the purple depths. How he blazed in the clear water
back of the boat, weaving to and fro before he hit the bait! The boatmen
yelled. They surely were keen to catch fish. We got twenty-four jumps out
of this swordfish. Not long after that I raised another and recorded
eighteen for him. During the lunch hour, as the boatmen began to brew
their tea, we let the boat drift. "Boys," I said, "I have a feeling you
will miss your lunch."

Sure enough, before long I had a tremendous strike. I hooked something
that felt like the bottom of the sea. Yet it made fast runs, short and
long. We thought I had a mako, and I worked accordingly. But my
exceedingly hard exertion was rewarded only by a huge ugly reremai shark
that gave us trouble at the boat. We signaled for the Captain's boat, and
when it arrived we said we needed a few more men. My boatmen wanted to
load this shark on board. I was not keen about that, but I did not
object. Finally they got the brute on the stern and roped fast, as they
imagined. A while later, when I hooked another Marlin, the shark began to
thump and thresh. I was knocked out of my seat, nearly losing my rod. One
of the guides was knocked off. Arlidge rescued my rod, sustaining a
bruised foot. The monster then flopped over in the cockpit, almost
filling it. Peter roped him down again, whereupon I went back to work on
the swordfish, which, marvelous to relate, had not escaped. I was afraid
the shark would break loose again and toss me overboard. Arlidge did get
a bump as he was working the clutch. He shouted lustily and left his post
in a hurry. Eventually the reremai quieted down and I landed my
swordfish.

Then we made the discovery that Captain Mitchell was fighting a heavy
fish. We ran over to learn that he had fastened to another reremai. I had
a lot of fun telling the Captain to pull the brute up quickly. He was
certainly engaged a long while, and punished his tackle considerably.

On the way in to Cape Brett the Captain had a Marlin take hold, waltz
around the boat on his tail and leap prodigiously to free himself at
last. That ended a rather unusual day of bad luck for Captain Mitchell
and good for me. We found we were more than an hour off the cape. I had
raised six Marlin with teasers. Once while fighting one of them my bait
slipped up the line, and two Marlin charged it. "All off, boys," I
called, slacking my line. "Those birds will cut me off."

We could see the purple and silver blazes, the bright stripes of the
swordfish, as they threshed around the bait. The left it, presently, and
after all I saved my fish. This we regarded as the most exciting incident
of an exciting day.

"Well," said Peter, his bronze face radiating enthusiasm, "the teasers
are great. They raise the Marlins all right."

It seemed I had indeed established another fact--that the swordfish of the
waters of the Antipodes could be raised to the surface by trolling. I was
immensely pleased, for that must eventually change the whole fishing
method around New Zealand. My fish weighed two hundred and eight,
two hundred and twenty-four and two hundred and thirty-four pounds.
The last one leaped twenty-one times.

We woke to a still better day, so far as weather and beautiful sea were
concerned. It was, however, the thirteenth; and also I had reached my
thirteenth Marlin! From a fisherman's standpoint, how was I ever going to
overcome such monumental handicaps? I did not.

I had three beautiful strikes, and though two of them were extremely
difficult strikes to handle, owing to the sudden long swift runs right
from the start, I acted with all possible good judgment and skill. But
not in any case did the hook hold. After all there is a great deal of
luck about that. If a swordfish takes the bait between his jaws, not
ravenously, and starts off with the head of the bait, containing the
hook, toward the angler, it stands to reason that when the angler strikes
he will either pull the bait out of the swordfish's mouth or pull the
hook loose. Anyway, I did both things.

One of my Marlin was a big heavy fish, and he shot off in a curve toward
Captain Mitchell's boat, leaping wildly with the bait swinging six feet
from his head. He had tangled in the leader. I saw it through his jaws.
There was an enormous bag in the line, as the swordfish had run straight
off, then suddenly doubled back. I simply could not hook him.

The last Marlin of the four I raised by teasers was a contrary fellow and
very cunning and obviously not hungry. He shot to and fro behind the
bait, a beautiful striped tiger of the sea. His pectorals stood out like
jib booms on a ship. We ran away from him, teasing him to follow, which
he did, even passing my bait; but he would not take it. Finally he
sheered away, blazing like a silver-and-purple shield, and faded into the
depths. After that I caught a reremai shark of about three hundred pounds
weight, which we cut loose.

The day was not entirely lost, considering the pictures we obtained, and
the raising of four more Marlin by the teasers.

At the cape, a half dozen or more boats caught nine Marlin. One boat had
five fish on; and twice it had a double-header, which is two strikes
simultaneously. In each case only one swordfish was landed. The drifting
method evidently was prolific of strikes that day. Also there must have
been plenty of swordfish, for I raised mine seven miles off the cape.
What strong entrancement gripped me, trolling those deep unknown blue
waters out there! Any moment I might raise an enormous black Marlin or a
great sailfish or mako, or even a broadbill, not to think of some new
species of fish.

The next day was the best day of all up to date, and naturally we
expected much; especially to sight the sickle fins of a broadbill. But
despite a smooth sea all day, not a sign! The sun shone hot. For the
first time I fished without a coat or vest.

At three o'clock Pete sighted the long, sharp tip of a Marlin tail. We
ran over. He appeared asleep. Frank would have run closer, but I said,
"If he is awake he'll see the teasers." When we got within two hundred
feet, he woke up and swirled the water. Then he disappeared. In another
moment, there he was behind the teasers, a great striped bird-like shape,
quick as a flash. He was the largest I had seen up to then. Crossing
behind the teasers two or three times, he sheered up, put his spear out
of the water, and snapped in my bait. Away he shot! I let him go long
enough, then struck, but the hook did not hold.

We saw the Captain have something of the same bad fortune. On the way in,
near Piercy Rock, I sighted a mako. We caught him. Then a little later
Pete sighted another, a larger one. We caught him. So the day ended well,
after all. I had the fun of raising flag at the very end, and also of
teasing Captain Mitchell and his boatmen.

My makos were small, as makos go, weighing one hundred and fifteen and
two hundred pounds. I guessed the weight of the smaller at eighty-six
pounds, and then made sure I had overestimated. These fish have the
heaviest flesh of any I ever caught. They are tremendously well equipped
to fight and destroy and live. While my men were gaffing the second mako,
the first one, tied astern, bit the gaff rope through, and I almost lost
this