Old Samoan Days. 
203 
lifts him clear, and tosses him, lashing and 
struggling savagely, on the reef, lo triumphe; 
or rather Aue! We have conquered ; and the 
blushing, panting Vaitupu smiles appreciation to 
the doctor’s encomiums of her pluck. 
“Hurrah!” exclaims the medico, as he grasps 
the slippery prize with both hands by the tail, 
and attempts to lift it up. “ What a pity we 
can’t take him back to Apia with us, and 
see him served up on the corvette’s table, I 
guess he weighs forty pounds, too, or more.” 
We take up our positions again, and now 
both Gafalua and the other natives land fish fast 
enough ; mostly a species of trumpeter about 
4lb. or 61 b. weight. The doctor gazes sadly 
at his line, not a sign of a bite yet, and turns 
for solace to his cigar case, when he starts 
up and gives an excited jerk at his line. 
“ Hurrah ! got one this time,” he calls out, 
and some ten fathoms away, near the surface 
of the water, we see the silvery sheen of a 
long slender fish like an attenuated salmon. 
An eccentric fellow this, for instead of allowing 
himself to be pulled in like any well-regulated 
member of his tribe, he executes some astonish- 
ing gymnastic feats, jumping clear out of the 
