150 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
spear in the other, ready to strike as soon as the 
fish appears. | 
In the rivers they also fish by torch-light, espe- 
elally for eels; and though the circumstances are 
varied, the impression is not inferior. Few scenes 
present a more striking and singular effect than a 
band of natives walking along the shallow parts of 
the rocky sides of a river, elevating a torch with 
one hand, and a spear in the other; while the glare 
of their torches is thrown upon the overhanging 
boughs, and reflected from the agitated surface of 
the stream. Their own bronze-coloured and lightly 
clothed forms, partially illuminated, standing like 
figures in relief; while the whole scene appears 
in bright contrast with the dark and almost mid- 
night gloom that envelops every other object. 
Since their intercourse with Europeans, English- 
made steel hooks have been introduced. They 
like their sharpness at the point, but usually com- 
plain of them as too open or wide. For some 
kinds of fish they are preferred, but for most 
they find the mother-of-pearl hooks answer best. 
Every fisherman, I believe, would rather have a 
wrought-iron nail three or four inches long, or a 
piece of iron-wire of the size, and make a hook 
according to his own mind, than have the best 
European-made hook that could be given to him. 
Most of the nails which they formerly procured from 
the shipping were used for this purpose, and highly 
rized, 
A Their ideas of the nature of these valuable 
articles were very singular. Perceiving, in their 
shape and colour, a resemblance to the young 
shoots or scions that grow from the roots of the 
bread-fruit trees, they imagined that they were a 
hard kind of plant, and procured in the same way. 
