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 
