Tohetika, Tehina, Pinga (the boat steerer), and I followed in a canoe. Dawn was at hand and, looking back, I saw the island, my house, and the crowd on the beach in the suffused, unreal light of sun and fading moon. In front of us the swimmers were already approaching the tumbled waters at the entrance to the pass. Upon reaching it they disappeared together, and I next saw them far on the other side, swimming in a direction parallel to the reef, and some fifty yards beyond the breaking point of the surf. When we joined them the sun was above the horizon and they were already at the sport. They lay face down on the surface of the water, turning their heads now and then for a breath of air. They swam with an easy breast stroke and a barely perceptible movement of the legs, holding their spears with their toes, near the end of the long shaft. Riding the long, smooth swell, it was hard to keep them in view, and they were diving repeatedly, coming to the surface again at unexpected places.
Through the clear water I could see every crevice and cranny in the shelving slope of coral; the mouths of gloomy caverns which undermined the reef, and swarms of fish, as strangely colored as the coral itself, passing through them, flashing across sunlit spaces, or hovering in the shadows of overhanging ledges. It was a strange world to look down upon and stranger still to see men moving about in it as though it were their natural home. Sometimes they grasped their spears as a poniard would be held for a downward blow; sometimes with the thumb forward, thrusting with an underhand movement. They were marvelously quick and accurate at striking. I had a nicer appreciation of their skill after my one attempt, which had proven to me how difficult it is to judge precisely the distance, the location of the prey, and the second for the thrust. A novice was helpless. He suffered under the heavy pressure of the water, and the long holding of his breath cost him agonized effort. Even though he were comfortable physically he might chase, with as good result, the dancing reflections of a mirror, turned this way and that in the sunlight.
As they searched the depths to the seaward side the bodies of the fishers grew shadowy, vanished altogether, reappeared as they passed over a lighter background of blue or green which marked an invisible shoal. At last they would come clearly into view, the spear held erect, rising like embodied spirits through an element of matchless purity which seemed neither air nor water. The whistling noises which they made as they regained the surface gave the last touch of unreality to the scene. I have never understood the reason for this practice which is universal among the divers and fishers of the Low Islands, unless it is that their lungs, being famished for air, they breathe it out grudgingly through half-closed teeth. Heard against the thunder of the surf, the sounds, hoarse or shrill, according to the wont of the diver, seemed anything but human.