The Leaping Tuna 71 



fisherman's luck. Manifestly the tunas could not 

 wait for any lengthy preparation; they came in 

 to meet us ; we have met the enemy and we are 

 theirs. The moral is, not to start from the beach 

 until everything is in readiness and to be pre- 

 pared for a strike the moment the bait is over, 

 and all the time. A school of half a dozen tunas 

 has entered the bay charging the flying-fishes, 

 and is off up the coast, where we follow. Once 

 around the point the tuna ground stretches away 

 from point to point, four miles or more, of as 

 beautiful water as the eye ever rested upon, 

 with high rocky cliffs and blue-tinted mountains 

 to the left, and everywhere as smooth as glass. 

 Tunas are in a short time sighted, some leaping 

 into the air, and as we move down the coast a 

 heavy sea appears to be breaking on the Long 

 Point rocks. But it is merely tunas feeding, 

 each tuna as it rushes creating a whitecap ; and 

 as hundreds are seen, the sight is a marvellous 

 simulation of a storm on a sea of glass. 



A flying-fish now comes soaring over the 

 ocean a foot above it, and we know that just 

 below is an eagle-eyed nemesis ready to pounce 

 upon it like a tiger. We know that the tuna and 

 its mate are swimming at an angle, canted, or, as 



