The Gigantic Albicore of Poly¬ 
nesia—The Takuo. 
NDER a sky of brass, and with the pitch 
bubbling up in every seam of our heated 
decks, for two days our little trading vessel had 
drifted to the eastward, borne steadily along by 
a swift, strong current. Then, just as we had 
lost sight of the cloud-capped peak of Ponape, 
a faint line of palms stood outlined upon the 
quivering sea-rim, ten miles ahead. This was 
Ngatik, one of the many hundreds of low- 
lying atolls that form the greater portion of 
the Caroline Archipelago, in the North Pacific. 
As the sun sank the faint air that gave us 
steerage way freshened a little, and in another 
hour or so we had the white line of beach of 
the little isle in view from the deck, and knew 
that we should have the satisfaction by nightfall 
of obtaining some fresh provisions and a night’s 
