One of the fishermen on a recent morning armed himself with a specially-made lance with which to try conclusions with the enemy which was stripping his lines of the hooked groper.
A shark that had bitten off the body of a groper followed the head up to the side of the boat, and received a prodigious jab with the lance.
It made off like a flash.
Another one, about 17ft long, repeated the performance, and when it came up alongside the launch it received a thrust from the lance that was well driven home.
The shark made for the boat, and evidently bit at it, for when the launch was hauled up on the beach a large tooth of a shark was found embedded in the wood, and there were evidences of teeth marks along the planks.
The shark was evidently unable to grip the boat, for the bite had glanced off.
The fisherman recovered the lance, badly bent.
• "Mr and Mrs Herbert Sellars!" The name looked quite commonplace on the Mokia's outward list of passengers for Tahiti and San Francisco.
It did not (says the Dominion) invite introspective analysis as to the personality it shaded, and yet the shipping people chuckled audibly as they picked the names out of a local paper, and rubbed their hands gleefully as the Mokoia departed without fuss or flurry on her long ocean voyage.
It transpired that "Mr and Mrs Herbert Sellers" were in reality Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener and his suite, Homeward-bound.
He had given strict instructions that his movements must not be divulged for the reason that he wanted to take his departure without any demonstration on the part of the warm-hearted Wellington public; so all who knew were sworn to secrecy, and others only knew that "Mr and Mrs Sellars" were off on a trans-Pacific journey.
There was a small crowd to see the Mokoia off, and Lord Kitchener was to be a passenger (and was not going south as reported), but it was too late to spread the news, and the Field-Marshal obtained that respite which he so keenly desired.
- ODT, 23.3.1910.
