BEL1KERI. 51 



shaft, and disengages itself when a fish 

 is struck; a separate rope connects it 

 with the boat, and as merely a few 

 feet of cord attaches the shaft to the 

 disengaged head, it serves as a float to 

 indicate the course of the wounded fish. 

 One afternoon in November, Byroo 

 and some thirty or forty fishermen 

 with him came up to the house drag- 

 ging a great saw-fish, which measured 

 about twenty- one feet from the end of 

 the saw to the tail, and was quite two 

 feet thick at the head, from which 

 point it tapered down to the tail. The 

 breadth across the belly under the 

 shoulders was between two and three 

 feet. I found on examining the fish 

 that the saw or double rake was set 

 in the same plane as the belly, which 



