Quotation from: The Cruise of the Snark

Written by: Jack London


This is the way it is done. The canoes form in line, one hundred to
two hundred feet apart. In the bow of each canoe a man wields a
stone, several pounds in weight, which is attached to a short rope.
He merely smites the water with the stone, pulls up the stone, and
smites again. He goes on smiting. In the stern of each canoe
another man paddles, driving the canoe ahead and at the same time
keeping it in the formation. The line of canoes advances to meet a
second line a mile or two away, the ends of the lines hurrying
together to form a circle, the far edge of which is the shore. The
circle begins to contract upon the shore, where the women, standing
in a long row out into the sea, form a fence of legs, which serves
to break any rushes of the frantic fish. At the right moment when
the circle is sufficiently small, a canoe dashes out from shore,
dropping overboard a long screen of cocoanut leaves and encircling
the circle, thus reinforcing the palisade of legs. Of course, the
fishing is always done inside the reef in the lagoon.

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Old Dominion University CS Dept
Designed by Joan A. Smith for the CRATE project
Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z
Part of the CratePreservation Project
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Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.