We seemed to be in a dilemma; hauling upon the line would almost certainly withdraw the spear before the fish would be near enough for further attack, and the canoe had already been drifting about for two hours or so. However I understood that there was some hope of capture if the beast could be induced to approach shallow water, though I was left to wait and see the bold plan which was in the natives’ minds. By dint of careful manœuvring we at last approached a reef, when one of the sailors unrove the boat’s rigging and made a running noose with which he actually dived to the bottom, braving the six feet of two-edged saw, to slip the noose over the monster’s tail! I, watching in safety from above, saw one of the finest diving feats imaginable, the man with the noose swimming to and fro, following the slow beats of the gigantic tail, watching his opportunity. Alas, as might have been expected, the monster was startled, a sudden wriggle and he disappeared, carrying the spear with him. CHAPTER VI DAILY LIFE—WOMEN Theoretically the women are supposed not to shew their faces and to be hidden from the world, liable to divorce at the caprice of the husband, and to be their downtrodden mindless slaves. As a matter of fact so far from men having four legal wives and numerous concubines, practically every marriage is monogamous. A tribe of nomads cannot enclose their women within high walls, and as for veiling, the most that is done is to hold a corner of their robe over the mouth, or perhaps between their teeth, and this is probably done as much to ward off the evil eye as from any ideas of modesty. No woman will, however, enter the yard enclosing my workshops without urgent cause, and if brought into my office by her husband she covers her face completely and squats out of sight behind my writing table, whence the husband must cuff her on to her feet before business can proceed. As a general rule the manner and look of the women is as of persons who know they have rights and a position, and who habitually make themselves heard in the family councils. Often I have been aware of the idea in a man’s mind which in English might be expressed by “I must ask the Missis,” and often it is bluntly put into words. Indeed, among these Northern tribes the women have a remarkable freedom, too much for the characters of many of them, as some subsequent anecdotes shew.