"The floor of Tari's house was of fine white gravel, covered with mats. A bed of mats, a few odds and ends of fishing gear, and a Bible in the Rarotongan language made up the furniture. The old man had been a pearl diver for many years; he knew all the lagoons of this part of the Pacific, and could give the history of every large pearl discovered in these waters. Twenty fathoms he considered an ordinary depth for the naked divers--twenty-five, the limit. One day he went too deep, and since then he had been a cripple with paralyzed legs, dependent for care on the kindly people of his island. He busied himself in carving out models of the ancient Polynesian sailing canoes, beautifully shaped and polished, inlaid with shell, and provided with sails of mother-of-pearl. Now and then he presented a canoe to the captain of a trading schooner visiting the island, and received in return a bag of flour or a few sticks of tobacco.
"I had some interesting yarns with Tari--I speak Rarotongan, and the Mataora language is a good deal the same. They have three extra consonants, by the way--the f, l, and h. What a puzzle these island dialects are!
"Tairi told me a lot about pearl fishing. The people had divided their lagoon into three sections, one of which was fished each year. In this way each section got a two years' rest. The shell is the object of the diving--pearls are a secondary issue. The divers are not much afraid of sharks, but dread the tonu and the big conger eel. Some years before, when Tari was resting in a boat after a spell under water, one of his companions failed to return to the surface. Looking through his water glass, he saw a great tonu lying on the bottom, sixty feet beneath him--the legs of his comrade hanging from its jaws. Fancy the ugly brute, ten feet long and all head, like an overgrown rock cod, with a man in his mouth. Tairi and several others seized their spears and were over the side next moment; they killed the tonu, but too late to save the life of their companion.
"Conger eels grow to enormous size in the pearl lagoons, and the divers keep a close watch for them. They lie in holes and crevices of the coral and dart out their heads to seize a passing fish, or the wrist of a diver stooping and intent on his task. When the conger's jaws close on wrist or ankle, the diver needs a cool head; no amount of struggling will pull the eel from his hole. One must wait quietly, Tairi told me, until the conger relaxes his jaws preparatory to taking a better grip. Then a quick wrench, and one is free.