TWENTY-FIVE FIJIANS DEVOURED BY SHARKS.

Waka Maori, Volume 10, Issue 26, 29 December 1874, Page 322

TWENTY-FIVE FIJIANS DEVOURED BY SHARKS.

The Weekly News, of Auckland, says the following horrible story is told by a writer in the Australasian: — "Some three years after King Tanoa's investment with the imperial tapa, he was returning in a large sailing canoe from a visit to a coast town of Viti Levu, when his vessel was overtaken by one of those sudden tropical squalls, which, though of brief duration, are singularly destructive. The wind catching the large mat sail in full blast, overthrew the mast, which killed seven of the crew in its fall, and the craft was swamped, many being suffocated under the folds of the sail. The timbers of the canoe were well secured with sinnet and the ingenious system of mortising so skilfully practised by the Fijian shipbuilders, but the violence of the sea was so great that they parted, and all hands were left at the mercy of the waves six miles from Bau. When the squall had passed over, and mild weather again prevailed, there were forty people swimming for their lives —thirty-four men, three of Tanoa's wives, and three children. It was fortunate the company was nearing their own island, for all such waifs of the ocean cast upon a foreign shore in Fiji are condemned by law, religion, and custom to the oven ; and had the plight of the King's party been observed by a tribe at enmity with them, chase would at once have been made. The disaster had not been observed on the island of Bau, and the wrecked canoe-load had no hope of reaching their homes except by swimming. The distance being only six miles, this was easy of accomplishment; but that which made the position so alarming was the well-known fact that

this particular locality was infested by numbers of sharks of the most ravenous kind, against whose attacks the unhappy people knew they could not hope successfully to cope. The King's companions had no great love for him, but they feared him and his Government, and they knew that it would be as well to be eaten by a shark as to return home without him. The thirtynine unfortunates, iucluding the women and children, accordingly formed themselves into a circle, having a diameter of about 60 feet round the King. As they swam they shouted and splashed with their feet until they produced the miniature resemblance of an annular reef endowed with locomotive powers. The King occupied the central space, and swam serenely on, in that diagonal, half-sitting posture, in which Polynesians can get so comfortably through the water. The shark is a timid creature in some respects, and His Majesty knew that no such monster would break through the charmed ring unless it should be one with tattoo marks on its belly, when it would be a god come to console him in his trouble, and show him an easier mode of deliverance. Feeling that he was of divine origin himself, it was only natural to his mind that some such incident should occur, and he thought that, whatever might happen to his attendants, the divinity which, hedged him would preserve him at all hazards. " The villanous footpads of the sea, which give an especial terror to Polynesian waters, were not long in making their appearance. When the first straight back fin appeared above the water gliding steadily on, a howl of terror went up from the devoted band which surrounded the royal personage. The sharks came prowling around, one or two at a time, without daring to touch the ring. When they received a large accession of numbers and became bolder they darted about, sometimes coming close up and then •retreating as though making a deliberate selection of some particular victim. Then they lingered near to the living fence, rubbing their cold, horny noses against the bare bodies of the Fijians, who yelled woefully, beseeching Dakuwaqua, their Neptune, to protect them. One of the children was the first sacrifice offered for the life of the King. The taste of the blood which floated on the water at once aroused the dormant appetites of the sharks, and they made terrific onslaught, never daring, however, to penetrate the circle. Some of the men were armed with long knives recently obtained from a European trading vessel, and fought boldly. When a shark turned on his side to make a good mouthful these often gave him a fatal stab ,- but they were no match for an enemy so numerous and so insidious in their mode of attack. The women and children were the first links missed from the chain. Then men began to drop out, but those who remained constantly closed up, and preserved an unbroken circle round Tanoa, the onward motion never being swayed. The sharks now r surrounded the whole party, and feasted pretty much at will. When a man fell out there was a lull in the attack until his body was devoured. But the appetites of these rapacious fishes seemed to grow by what they fed on. Many of the men who still swam on had lost a leg or an arm. The foam raised in beating the water to scare the sharks from penetrating the protecting band was crimson with blood.

"To those who now began to notice the strange appearance from the shore, however, the water had only that rose colour which it has in the tropics when thrown up between the sunlight and the spectator, and little attention was paid to a disturbance which might have been caused by a shoal of fish. Meanwhile the unhappy swimmers were in sight of their homes. They could see the stilted roots of the mangroves skirting their shore, the stony beach, the houses in the town, and the temples on the rising ground. To not a few of them it was a farewell glance. Tbe remorseless monsters who had them at their command ceased not their attentions, and with a desparing cry many poor fellows continued falling out of their places, notwithstanding their assiduity in shouting the tama to their god. The chain was at length reduced to very narrow dimensions. It consisted of only fifteen men, and Tanoa was less easy in his mind than he had been, for there was another mile of swimming to be done before that blood-red circle could tinge the waters which rippled on the shores of Bau. Assuming an upright position in the water, the King took off his turban. The long thin folds of fine white tapa were floated by the wind in the direction of the island. The waving cloth was seen, and at the same time the heads of the men in the water were discerned. A small canoe was speedily manned, and the fifteen shipwrecked mariners, with their chief, were landed in safety. Twenty-five had been eaten.