HALIBUT FISHING. 149 
the certainty of drowning. I would have given 
much to have stood up; but no; if I only moved 
on one side to peep over, a sudden yell from 
the steersman, accompanied by a flourish of the 
braining-club—inildly admonitory, no doubt, but 
vastly significant—ensured instant obedience. I 
forgot cold, wet, and fright, and indeed every- 
thing but the all-absorbing excitement attend- 
ant on this ocean-chase. The skill and tact of un- 
educated men, pitted against a huge sea-monster 
of tenfold strength, was a sight a lover of sport 
would travel any distance to witness. 
Slowly and steadily the sturdy paddlers worked 
towards the shore, towing the fish, but keeping 
the canoe stern-first, so as to be enabled to pay 
out line and follow him, should he suddenly grow 
restive: in this way the Indians gradually coaxed 
the flat monster towards the beach; a weak, 
powerless, exhausted giant, outwitted, captured, 
and subdued, prevented from diving into his deep- 
sea realms by, what were to him, anything but 
life-buoys. We beached him at last, and he yielded 
his life to the knife and club of the redskin. 
I believe the species to be the Pleuronectes 
hippoglossus of Linnzus, but of this I am by no 
means perfectly clear, as I had only an opportu- 
nity of examining this single specimen, that | es- 
timated as weighing over 300lbs.; and it was 
