July 22, 1899.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
71 
Fishing the Mulivai-to. 
'•Mais otii, Tamaitai, nous avons e tele i 'a i le Muli- 
vai-to nei." 
It was Pakele who made this somewhat tangled remark 
when he saw me overhauling a well-worn book which has 
carried a few essentials of fishing gear into many wild 
places. To appreciate the situation one should have seen 
Pakele, the generic name in Samoan for all the priests 
of the French Catholic mission. It was at Falefa, on the 
island of Upolu, in Samoa. The malanga had been re- 
ceived with the set phrases and wearisome cerenronies of 
the savage courtesy of Samoan life. The guest house set 
apart for the use of the travelers and retainers was that 
belonging to the Chief Salanoa, and over against it were 
the charred center posts of the house of Mataafa, who 
was then in exile, and who has since been in rebellion, 
and now is going back to banishment. When the pom- 
pous natives had shouted from the oilier side of the vil- 
lage green the last of their speeches, it was time for the 
white population to call and pay its respects. The white 
population was restricted to one man. Pere Chouvier, the 
mission priest— -Pakele to all the villagers, high and low, 
young and old, Catholic and Protestant— held in affection 
by all, if one may credit that line of emotion to the 
Samoans, who truly are too selfish to be capable of af- 
fection. 
Poor old Pakele! He was picturesque and pitiable, 
an old man in long soutane and shovel hat, grizzled and 
with a long white beard. He had been at Falefa for 
forty-two years, rarely seeing a white man except when 
some trader was wind-bound and feared to attempt the 
risks of rounding the Jettison of Biscuit Point, which 
was next along that coast. At rare intervals Monsignor 
L'Eveque, or Le Provicaire, came to catechize his catechu- 
mens. It was a monstrously lonely life, a life of sad pov- 
erty. But here Avere visitors, and the aged priest must 
pay his respects. The poor old man, peasant bred and 
with little education beyond his book of offices, knew no 
English; even his French came but slowly to his tongue, 
and whenever he spoke it was a curious mess and jumble 
of French and Samoan. The ludicrous part of it was 
that when he spoke this jargon he thought that he was 
speaking the best of French: but it was very hard to 
rnake it out at times, and it was found match easier to let 
him talk in straight Samoan. 
The fishing gear stirred him to a little interest. Ages 
ago, when he was young, and the deadly blight of Samoa 
had not settled down on him, he may have fished him- 
self. At any rate, he retained enough enthusiasm to say 
in his queer jargon, "But yes, Madame, we have manv 
fish here in the Mulivai-to." That was encouraging 
news, for after the first curiosity of seeing how the sav- 
ages live has worn off, the three days which etiquette 
prescribes for a formal visit become very wearisome, 
and time may be better spent in fishing. 
The local geography of Falefa makes it an ideal spot 
for all the kinds of fish there are in Samoa. Outside the 
reef in the open sea there is a streak of current which is 
a favorite water for the bonito, and if they are to be 
taken at all that is the best fishing ground. Inside" the 
reef there is every variety of bottom in an equal variety of 
depth. An inner lagoon half a mile long opened to the 
sea by a narrow channel, but it was so abundantly fed by 
springs 01 sweet water that the movement of the tide 
scarcely makes it at all brackish; therefore a proper 
home for the common South Sea eel. The spot which 
seemed to offer sport was in the Mulivai-to, one of the 
most clearly marked river mouths in Samoa, and just at 
'the edge of the village of Falefa. It was a picturesque 
-spot enough. There was a bar almost opposite a gap in 
the outer reef, that admitted the rollers from outside, 
without the assistance of which it would not have been 
possible to take even the lightest draft boat over the 
sands. Inside the bar the river fills a deep valley for a 
straightaway of half a mile, and an unvarying breadth of 
about looyds. at the water level. The western bank is a 
rock cliff about Soft, high, the surface covered with ferns 
and convolvulus and ropy lianas, the summit dark in 
the shade of tamano and ifi trees. The eastern bank, 
while not so precipitous, is a very steep fiarik of the 
mountain, and is thicldy grown with timber — cocoanuts 
near the water and then the gloomy jungle of enormous 
trees of many sorts. At the head of the gorge the river 
comes tumbling over the rock wall in two leaps, of which 
the second makes far the more conspicuous cataract, in 
a sheer drop of rather more than Soft. With such scen- 
ery and such a wide range of water conditions, all within 
a distance that a pistol shot could carry, there could be 
no doubt about there being fish in abundance, even as 
Pere' Chouvier had tried to say in his mixed-up lan- 
guages. But whether those fish would respond to tlie 
inventions of fishing with which they were unfamiliar and 
respond with sufficient animation to make sport was a 
thing yet to be determined. These Polynesian fish had 
become educated in Polynesian fishing; they knew all 
about the nets and the night spearing with torches and 
the skittering of shining tentacles of octopods; whether 
they would know what to do when enticed by bait or fly 
Avas a question yet to be determined, and all the more 
interesting because of the problem which it presented. 
The fishing outfit was small in compass; everything has 
to be cut down to the lowest notch when traveling in a 
small rowboat. But it was sufficient. There were a few 
lines, linen and silk, far less cumbrous than the braided 
cocoanut fiber which the Samoans use; there were reels, 
multiple and automatic, the first whose click had ever 
sounded over these waters; there was a book of old 
favorite flies which had proved their worth in other 
waters. The sight of this gear, once familiar to the old 
priest in his own distant France, excited a forgotten en- 
thusiasm of the old man. He had fallen into an apathy 
as regards fish; he ate them when his flock brought thera 
to his door; but the Friday necessity for fish did not 
exist for him_. since the_ Pope long ago gave this remote 
missionary diocese a dispensation. All of a sudden he 
became an' enthusiast and a helper as he clicked the 
reels. Rods are simple in FaJefa; in all the -woods about 
the village of Falefa they grow in rank luxuriance, and a 
green bamboo of the right length is just as light and just 
as strong as the best hexagonal split that ever was made. 
A few commands frorn Pakele sent two half-grown lads 
into the bush with their head-chopping knives, and in a 
few minutes they came back with an assortment of bam- 
boos from which to select the proper length and weight. 
Since this fishing must all be in the nature of an ex- 
periment, it was decided to try every method which 
might produce results, both bait and fly, and to try them 
in the sweet water of the river gorge and in the surf as 
well. There was an initial difficulty in the matter of 
bait. It was ea.sy to tell the curious "children of the vil- 
lage to bring worms, which they call "anufe," but the 
command set them scampering in what seemed the 
wrong direction — down to the beach instead of to spots 
that seemed more likely. At the same time the priest sent 
others off after "afato," or grubs, and they were soon 
seen jabbing rotten trunks with sharp sticks in their 
search. The children who had gone for worms were the 
first back. Each had a sherd of cocoanut shell filled with 
writhing monsters, all wriggle and legs, and about as re- 
pulsive a collection as could be imagined. They were all 
marine worms, for Pakele explained with many apologies 
that Samoa might be dug over from beach to mountain 
ridge and not disclose a single angle worm. The marine 
worms he thought might well be tried, for they were the 
natural food of fishes in the salt water, and he busied 
himself with looping several on as many hooks, not 
puncturing them at all, but tying them in place with tiny 
threads of hibiscus fiber pulled from a fresh strainer made 
for the kava drinking. The boys who had been sent for 
grubs returned with a doezn or more assorted sizes, but 
most were quite too large and chubby to think of using 
them for any but large fish, which it was not expected 
could be taken in the particular waters which it was 
intended to fish. As a matter of fact, they were not used 
at all, through an incident or accident of Samoan life. 
They were all put in a half of a cocoanut shell, and that 
was forced down into the pebbled floor so that it would 
stand upright. While they were left for further consid- 
eration, the chief's wife strolled in to see the novel ar- 
rangements for fishing. As she sat looking on, her appe- 
tite awoke. Eating is a continuous performance with 
these savages. She ate the bait, and the fact was not 
discovered until she was seen crowding the last fat grub 
into her mouth, which was dripping with the creamy pulp 
of its predecessors. Pakele gave her a fine scolding, but 
it apparently made little impression, and even the priest 
had to confess that these grubs were very good eating 
when you got used to the idea, and that they had the 
flavor of chestnuts. Despite this assurence, it was at 
least a novel and decidedly nauseating sensation to have 
one's hostess eat up the bait. As to the choice of flies, 
there was little to direct the selection, for insect life in 
these islands is not abundant nor conspicuous, the most 
common forms hovering over the water, both salt and 
fresh, being a light lavender butterfly about the size of 
the cabbage butterfly of more familiar scenes, and a 
gauzy-winged libellula with two long, threadlike tails. 
It is impossible to tell what fish were taken. They 
looked like odds and ends of the rainbow for variety of 
color, and their shapes were as grotesque as a Chinese 
puzzle. To be sure, they all had Samoan names, but 
that leaves one not at all the wiser, for they have not 
yet passed under the study of Jordan or Gilbert and 
Bean, who kno-w the fine points of fishes. It is enough 
to say that they took to bait and fly as greddily as if 
they had been brought up to the white man's fishery. 
Fishing until weary, there was a large catcli, and with 
very fcAV duplicates. 
The first attempt was made from the bar at the mouth 
of the Mulivai-to. Just behind the crest of each ad- 
vancing wave the fish could be seen in abundance darting 
hither and yon on the smooth back slope and partly 
breaking the surface. The first cast was made with one 
of the repulsive sea worms, carefully placed in the depth 
of the hollow behind the wave, only a single hook being- 
used. Immediately the fish cast themselves on the tempt- 
ing morsel and the water seemed fairly alive with gaudy 
fish. As soon as the fish got the bait it bored right out 
seaward through the next -w^ave, and then through the 
second to the quieter water outside. Here it was played 
to exhaustion. The movement of the sea was always 
tending to take the strain off the line, but the strong 
rush of the fish was constant in the other direction, so 
that there was little danger of losing it when it was 
thrown up on the crest of the surf. It took about ten 
minutes to wear the fish out, so it was safe to reel in. 
When it was brought to shore within reach of an im- 
provised landing net, it was seen to be a cobbler fish a 
little more than ift. long, body bright red, with yellow 
bands and all fins sky blue, the dorsals and ventrals 
stretching out into long filaments, like cobblers' waxed 
ends, and ^s long as 6 or Sin. After this first essay, it 
was seen that it was perfectly practicable to use three 
hooks at once, and rarely did it happen that a fish was 
not landed on each. 
One of the fish taken on the back of the surf had a 
curious little story. It despised the bait, and anyone who 
has seen these sea worms will not blame any fish for re- 
jecting them. But this was a dainty fish, with the clean 
lines of the mackerel, yet only half as large. It responded 
promptly to a small fly put together of two green feathers 
and one red'one from the head of the common parrakeet. 
It was just a little dash of color. There is not an insect 
in Samoa that has that coloration, but it attracted the 
fish, and that is all that is needed. The fish was a very 
dainty fa\vn color, faintly spotted on the sides and belly 
with steel blue dots regularly though sparsely placed. 
Just behind the gill cover on each side was a spot the size 
of a dime of a deep indigo. When Pakele had lifted it out 
of the landing net he looked at it with as much interest 
as the fisher, and then put it in the basket -^vith the 
others. The native girls promptly took it out and put 
it in another basket, which they kept. Pakele took it 
back, and the girls repeated their performance. When 
he reclaim.ed it once more the girls refused to give it up, 
which led the old priest to give them a scolding for their 
discourtesy. But the girls and the women who joined 
the party scolded back in turn. They said that Pakele 
was a man and must not have the fish. It turned out 
that there has always been a taboo on this particular 
■fish; it is always the property of the women, and men 
are forbidden to keep or eat it. There is no penalty for 
breaking the taboo, but none the less, not a single male 
Samoan will confess to having tasted the forbidden deli- 
cacy. And it is a delicacy, for there is no other fish in 
the South Sea so finely flavored. 
It would need many illustrations^ and in fact chromo- 
lithographs, to go into the details of this fishing at the 
mouth of the Mulivai-to. The largest catch was made 
on the seaward side of the bar, and there was some in- 
teresting sport. But the best work was done on a fresh 
water fish, just inside the bar. These fish are to be 
found in all the Samoan streams, but they are at their 
best in the brackish water of the lower reaches, probably 
because they are not able to get back over the many 
cataracts over which they are carried in the frequent 
floods. They are light brown in color, as finely modeled 
as trout, and are distinguished by a peculiar marking in 
dark, reddish-brown. The back around the dorsal fin is 
covered with a long, narrow ellipse of this dark color,' 
the greatest length extending along the backbone; con- 
centric with this are two bands of the same color, of 
which the outer one reaches from just behind the head 
back as. far as the tail. These fish are to be seen in great 
numbers in the deep water just within the bars of all 
Samoan rivers, and are most common at the edge of the 
main stream and eddy currents, where they hover for 
long spaces of time motionless, but invariably with their 
heads toward the mouth of the stream. 
Samoans say that these fish never eat and are never 
taken. The latter point is fact. The Samoan fishers 
have never been able to take them in nets or by spears. 
This in itself was a challenge to see what could be done 
with them, and even without such a reputation it would 
have been enough to see a school of fish from Yz to 2lbs. 
waiting to have something done with them. At first it 
almost seemed that the islanders were riglit, and that 
the fish did not eat anything. Every device in the way 
of bait and fly was tried for their benefit, and they re- 
fused to stir for anything which was tried. As a last re- 
sort a small hermit crab, of which there were thousands 
on the bar, was twisted out of his shell and impaled on 
the hook. This bait was allowed to float with the incom- 
ing tide just over the school of fish. Hermit crab proved 
to be -what they were waiting for. There was a business- 
like movement of the whole school and a a-potinder was 
straightaway on the hook. For a fish of limited educa- 
tion he showed himself familiar -with most of the details 
of the game, and gave pretty sport before he came to 
land. This is the only fish in Samoa that has any true 
game flavor. 
This fishing of the Mulivai-to was a revelation to the 
Samoans, and filled the old priest -with an unwonted 
pleasure. 
Llewella Pierce Churchill. 
Atlantic City Pier Jigfgfcfs. 
Washington, D. C, July 12. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Seeking information, and at the same time en- 
tering a protest against the wholesale slaughter of fish, 
and the degenerating of one of the most delightful sports, 
when rightly engaged in, I am writing to ask if there is 
any way to put a stop to the childish and unsportsman- 
like so-called fishing from Young's Pier, at Atlantic City. 
During a recent visit to the above-named resort, I was 
surprised beyond measure to find full-grown men en- 
gaged in the "sport" of catching fish out of a net pound 
about 50ft. square. By means of a trap net the fish are 
driven into the pound, and after once they get in there 
is no possible way of escape. So great is the number of 
captive fish that a few days ago I stood by and watched 
one man catch fish as fast as he dropped his line over, 
and all without bait, using only a four-pronged hook 
and sinker, dropping the hook among the fish, giving a 
slight jerk and landing his fish, caught by the tail or belly. 
I protest that such is cruel and certainly not to be con- 
sidered as sport. I am devoted to fishing, and am will- 
ing to undergo great privations for the enjoyment of the 
sport; but it does seem to me something should be done 
to put an end to such childish and unsportsmanlike 
wholesale slaughter of fish such as I witnessed only a 
few days ago, when I saw from fifteen to twenty full- 
grown men catching fish from a small pound, and all 
good fish. I trust a paper with the influence and stand- 
ing of Forest anb Stream may in some measure do 
something toward establishing a sentiment resulting, let 
us hope, in the discontinuing of this most cruel and un- 
sportsmanlike practice. I may add that in conversation 
with another, a stranger to me, at his sugestion I was 
moved to appeal to your valued paper. 
H. Fields Saumenig. 
The Salt- Water Leagoe« 
The Protective League of Salt-Water Fishermen, of 
New- York, has received its charter; and on Wednesday 
night the first meeting of the incorporated society was 
held for the election of officers. Those chosen were: 
President, Theodore Biedinger; Vice-President, Albert 
Baywood; Treasurer, Thomas Reilly; Financial Secre- 
tary, Charles S. Crane ; Recording and Corresponding 
Secretary, Eugene Fliedner; Board of Directors, Alfred 
Rogers, Frederick Etz, Frederick Hochgraef, Sr., J. F. 
Millikin, Edward Shott, WiUiam Roeber and Rudolph 
Hoffman. 
Permanent headquarters -will be provided, and every- 
thing promises well for the usefulness of the League and 
the accomplishment of its purpose, which is the enforce- 
ment of the protective laws. 
Where are Blacfcfish and Crabs? 
East Rockaway, L. I, July 17.— Crabs have not -been 
so scarce in years as they are this summer. Some years 
it has been an easy thing to catch a hundred or more in 
one day. Now the most skillful and persistent crabber 
has to be content with a few dozen. Blackfish and eels 
are also very scarce. Some bajTnen attribute the scarcity 
of eels and crabs to the anchor ice which settled on the 
muddy beds of the channels during the winter, while 
others say that the scarcity of food accounts for the ab- 
sence of eels and shell fish. Quahaug. 
Long: Island Fishingf. 
Queenswater, L. I., July 17.— Bluefish have felt the 
effects of the bad weather and have not been biting so 
freely as heretofore. The fe-w that are caught, however, 
are very large, averaging over 6Ibs.. in weight. There 
