CHAPTER XVII 



SOME STRANGE FISH AND STRANGE 

 FISHERMEN 



Decay of primitive methods South American fisheries The ara- 

 paima Harpoons and tethered arrows The armado Catching 

 fish on land The diodon Fishing in Tierra del Fuego African 

 river-fishing The Indian mango-fish The modern Galilean fisher- 

 manSouth Sea Island fish Proas and Hawaiian "outriggers" 

 Australian and Arctic fishing. 



BEFORE quitting the subject of fish proper, we 

 ought to take a glance at a few of those distant 

 fisheries that cannot well be classed under any of 

 the foregoing heads. Colonisation by Europeans has 

 necessarily swept away many of the primitive methods 

 and appliances with which the native fishermen of Poly- 

 nesia, the East Indies, Africa, and America were wont to 

 astonish the travellers of a bygone age ; but the fish are 

 still there many of them very curious and interesting 

 and some of the old ways of catching them still prevail. 

 It is only among civilised or quasi-civilised nations that 

 much deep-sea fishing is to be found. Work of that sort 

 implies the use of strongly built vessels such as few savage 

 races would have the means of constructing, as well as a 

 far more profound knowledge of seamanship than could be 

 expected among a barbarian people. Enlightened as the 



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