Floating Down The River
p. 68 · Read in the full issue
River
ONE used to see some odd things float ing down Fiji’s rivers in flood time.
At Naduruloulou Police Station, Rewa, I used to watch for the swollen carcases of drowned stock, and pump .303 bullets into them, hoping they would thus sink and save the calling out later of an official burying squad.
I was amused, one day, watching a cun ning old Fijian. The river was normal; and he started at the head of a long, smooth-running stretch of fast water equipped with a pole about eight feet long, with a short line and hook and a supply of grasshopper bait stuck in his upstanding hair.
He kept himself afloat as he drifted down, dap-dap-dapping a grasshopper ahead of him. He would hook a nice “ika droka,” swim to the bank and hang it to a bush by its gills, and continue the process. Then, walking back to his Koro, he would collect his catch, all fresh for the pot—the queerest bit of fly-fishing I ever saw.
Navua’s flood-time masterpiece was the coming to town of Samuela. All you could see was the front end of a log in midstream, sticking well up. The other end, well under water, carried Samuela, only his head and shoulders showing. It was raining hard, and, to complete the picture, he was holding an umbrella over his head to keep his new permanent wave dry. ‘Mata-kiki-obo-obo.’