For some time the contest was a very equal one, after the huge fish was buoyed and prevented from diving. On the one side the halibut made desperate efforts to escape by swimming, and on the other the Indians, keeping a tight line, made him tow the canoe. Evident signs of weariness at last began to exhibit themselves, his swimming became slower, and the attempts to escape more feeble and less frequent. Several times the canoe came close up to him, but a desperate struggle enabled him once more to get away. Again and again we were all but over; the fish, literally flying through the water, sometimes towed the canoe nearly under, and at others spun it suddenly round, like a whipped top; nothing but the wonderful dexterity of the paddlers saved us from instant shipwreck and the certainty of drowning. I would have given much to have stood up; but no; if I only moved on one side to peep over, a sudden yell from the steersman, accompanied by a flourish of the braining-club—mildly admonitory, no doubt, but vastly significant—ensured instant obedience. I forgot cold, wet, and fright, and indeed everything but the all-absorbing excitement attendant on this ocean-chase. The skill and tact of uneducated men, pitted against a huge sea-monster of tenfold strength, was a sight a lover of sport would travel any distance to witness. Slowly and steadily the sturdy paddlers worked towards the shore, towing the fish, but keeping the canoe stern-first, so as to be enabled to pay out line and follow him, should he suddenly grow restive: in this way the Indians gradually coaxed the flat monster towards the beach; a weak, powerless, exhausted giant, outwitted, captured, and subdued, prevented from diving into his deep-sea realms by, what were to him, anything but life-buoys. We beached him at last and he yielded his life to the knife and club of the redskin. I believe the species to be the _Pleuronectes hippoglossus_ of Linnæus, but of this I am by no means perfectly clear, as I had only an opportunity of examining this single specimen, that I estimated as weighing over 300 lbs.; and it was quite impossible to investigate its specific character, inasmuch as the Indians immediately set to work to cut the body in pieces, some to be there and then devoured, after a very brief roasting on a temporary fire; the remainder, packed into the canoe, was taken to the village. Halibut are said to spawn in the middle of February; the roe, which is bright red, being esteemed a great dainty by all the Coast Indians.