62 Maji Against Shark 



the beauty. But the terror did not repel him, as it had repelled so many 

 men before him. Instead, it challenged him. He was seized by a desire 

 to conquer the shark, to learn its ways, to hunt it down. The shark be- 

 came his Moby Dick, an ageless, dreaded, murderous demon spawned of 

 legend and fact. It could be attacked, but never destroyed; studied, but 

 never understood; captured, but never tamed. 



On the waterfront of Honolulu, where sailors spun their tales of sharks, 

 and in native huts, where squatting Kanakas retold their myths of the 

 mano, Young learned about the shark. And, in the blood-frothed waters 

 of the shark orgies upon the carrion. Young killed sharks. He became 

 known first as "Sharky Bill," a nickname that carried a trace of disdain 

 for this man who seemed always to be asking about sharks, listening to 

 shark stories, or talking about sharks. Soon, though, as stories about his 

 prowess as a shark-killer circulated in the islands, he earned a title that 

 was bestowed in awesome respect. They called him Kane Mano, "The 

 Shark Hunter." 



Before he killed his last shark— at the age of 70— Captain William 

 Young had hunted sharks from Honolulu to Australia, from Florida to 

 French Somaliland. At the age of 87, he could look back on 60 years 

 of shark hunting— years in which he killed 100,000 sharks, often at the 

 rate of 20 or 30 a day. At 87, he was still Kane Mano: "In Kon-Tiki, a 

 book by a good friend of mine, Thor Heyerdahl, he told of catching 

 sharks by the tail with his hand. I've never tried that game before, but 

 I'm sure I can do it, even at 87. "'^ 



The log of Kane Mano has many entries. It spans many years and 

 many seas. It recounts the lives— and deaths— of many sharks. Most of all, 

 it tells^the many adventures of a unique man. Here are some leaves from 

 it: 



When one hears the word shark, a powerful mental image is generated of a 

 cold-blooded rover of the deep, its huge mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth, 

 swimming ceaselessly night and day in search of anything that might fall into 

 the cavernous maw and stay the gnawing hunger which drives the rapacious fish 

 relentlessly on his way. A terrible creature, afraid of nothing. The savage fury 

 with which he attacks, the rage of his thrashing when caught, his brutal insensi- 

 bility to injury and pain— all well merit the name of Afreet, symbol of all that 

 is terrible and monstrous in Arabian superstition. 



The shark is this, but I have found him to be a thing of endless paradoxes, 

 too— sinister enigma, which one time may kill a man and another time flee from 

 a man as if in fear; a cunning adversary which may trick a fisherman one day 

 and a loutish brute which may blunder into a net another day; a creature of 

 consummate grace and a beast of loathsome habits. 



^ Though he lived to see this book written. Captain Young died before it was 

 published. Death came to Kane Mano on October 31, 1962. 



