Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/95

90 keen fish-spear grasped firmly in the hand. The spot, chosen for their stealthy immersion was near the point, where their knowledge told them that the scaley denizens of the river were enjoying their midday siesta; and there they stood in the river, shoulder deep, still as though they had been mere images instead of men, making Pinbocoroo's reiteration of cuppa cuppa (hush, hush), superfluous quite. Not a single muscular tremor was to be seen in any one of the expertant savage divers until the word was given by the king, when they simultaneously sank from sight, leaving scarcely a ripple behind to tell the spot from whence they had disappeared. After the lapse of what seemed to us an endless time, though by the clock it could not have been very great, the divers began to reappear, by ones, by twos, and threes, until the whole number were once more on the surface, some struggling with immense fish transfixed upon their spears, requiring considerable assistance to land them safely; others, again, with lesser prey wriggling about on their spears like great entimological [sic] specimens on immense pins, required no aid in the landing of their fish. Still, they made as much noise and splutter on the occasion as the landing of a sixty-pounder would warrant; but so it is with these aborigines, even as it is with the greater portion of human kind—plenty of cry and little wool.

This under-water spearing continued with varying success until the sun had declined considerably, when it was abandoned, and the canoes shifted to fresh feasting grounds, then the hooks and lines again became the order of the day. By this time the fish had become as lively as it is their nature to be, consequently they took the delicate pieces of