Before setting out I had spent some little time in completing my preparations for the capture of the strange monster.
The very afternoon I arrived I went down to the shores of the lagoon with all the natives, and had not long to wait before I beheld what was apparently a huge fish careering wildly and erratically hither and thither in the water.

On seeing it the natives appeared tremendously excited, and they danced and yelled, hoping thereby to drive the creature away.

My first move was in the nature of an experiment--merely with the object of getting a better view of the monster.

I endeavoured to angle for it with a hook made out of a large piece of sharpened bone.

I then produced large nets made out of strips of green hide and stringy-bark rope.