Let me first of all, however, explain that the ta~nifa is a somewhat rare and greatly-dreaded member of the old-established shark family.  By many white residents in Samoa it was believed to occasionally reach a length of from twenty to twenty-five feet; as a matter of fact it seldom exceeds ten feet, but its great girth, and its solitary, nocturnal habit of haunting the mouths of shallow streams has invested it even to the native mind with fictional powers of voracity and destruction.  Yet, despite the exaggerated accounts of the creature, it is really a dreadful monster, rendered the more dangerous to human life by the persistency with which it frequents muddied and shallow water, particularly after a freshet caused by heavy rain, when its presence cannot be discerned.

Into the port of Apia there fall two small streams—­called “rivers” by the local people—­the Mulivai and the Vaisigago, and I was fortunate to see specimens of the ta~nifa on three occasions, twice at the Vaisigago, and once at the mouth of the Mulivai, but I had never seen one caught, or even sufficiently exposed to give me an idea of its proportions.  Many natives, however—­particularly an old Rarotongan named Hapai, who lived in Apia, and was the proud capturer of several ta~nifa—­gave me a reliable description, which I afterwards verified.

A ta~nifa ten feet long, they assured me, was an enormously bulky and powerful creature with jaws and teeth much larger than an ocean-haunting shark of double that length; the width across the shoulders was very great, and although it generally swam slowly, it would, when it had once sighted its prey, dart along under the water with great rapidity without causing a ripple.  At a village in Savaii, a powerfully built woman who was incautiously bathing at the mouth of a stream was seized by one of these sharks almost before she could utter a cry, so swiftly and suddenly was she attacked.  Several attempts were made to capture the brute, which continued to haunt the scene of the tragedy for several days, but it was too cunning to take a hook and was never caught.

This particular ta~nifa, which had been seen by the young Manono chief and his men on the preceding evening had made its appearance soon after darkness had fallen and had cruised to and fro across the mouth of the Vaivasa till the tide began to fall, when it made its way seaward through a passage in the reef.  It was, so Li’o assured me, quite eight feet in length and very wide across the head and shoulders.  The water was clear and by the bright starlight they had discerned its movements very easily; once it came well into the river and remained stationary for some minutes, lying under about two feet of water.  Some of the Manono men, hailing a picket of the enemy on the opposite bank of the river, asked for a ten minutes’ truce to try and shoot it; this was granted, and standing on top of the sandy trench, half a dozen young fellows fired a volley at the shark from their Sniders.  None of the bullets took effect and the ta~nifa sailed slowly off again to cruise to and fro for another hour, watching for any hapless person who might cross the river.