INACTION AND AN EXCURSION 
attracting gare-fish, which is their chief quarry, is by 
burning huge flares of dried palm leaves. Hach of 
these flares is made up of a considerable bundle of 
leaves, and the men brandish them about in their 
hands. The light lasts for a considerable time. The 
effect of these many fires, reflected in long tracks on 
the water, is extremely picturesque. The fishing 
lasts all night, and at dawn the fleet returns with its 
catch. 
The work is not unattended with danger, for some- 
times the gare-fish, which are armed with a sharp 
sword-like projection of bone from the front part of the 
head, will, as they leap in blind terror of the light, 
strike the fishermen and kill them. The natives set 
up a stick in the water where any one has been killed 
by gare-fish. ) 
Another interesting feature of Hula was the pre- 
sence there of a piebald people. For the most part 
their bodies were brown, but they were marked with 
pinkish patches unevenly distributed. It is not 1m- 
probable that this marking might be due to a disease, 
contracted from a too constant fish diet, but if it were 
a disease I could not discover that it gave any discom- 
fort. Against this theory must be set this fact, that I 
observed one man in whom the light markings pre- 
dominated. In fact, he was quite fresh-coloured, like 
a Kuropean, and had light hair. These piebald people 
were not a class apart from the rest of the Hula 
villagers, but shared their life in every respect. 
The piles on which the Hula houses are built look 
quite insufficient to support the superstructure. The 
pitch of the gables is not always uniform in the 
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