78 
Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
By and by those natives who are fast to a 
big fellow call out to their comrades that their 
shark is too heavy and strong to bring along¬ 
side and kill, and ask for an implement known 
to whalers as a “ drogue ”—a square piece of 
wood with a hole through the centre which, 
attached to the end of a line, gives such 
resisting power that the shark or whale 
dragging it behind him is soon exhausted. So 
the “ drogue ” is passed along from another 
canoe, and being made fast to the end of a small 
but strong line, the canoe is carefully hauled up 
as near as possible to savage, struggling Jack. 
At the loose end of the line is a noose, and 
watching a favourable moment as Jack lifts his 
tail out of the water, the steersman slips it over, 
and away goes line and “ drogue ”—the man 
who is holding on to the main line casting it all 
overboard so as to give the shark plenty of room 
to exhaust himself. In ten minutes more he is 
resigned to his fate, gives in, is clubbed in peace 
and towed ashore—that is, if his ocean prowling 
friends and relatives do not assimilate him unto 
themselves before his carcase is dragged up on 
to the reef, and skinned by the savage-eyed 
Ocean Island women. 
