ted waters. Moreover,
the surf-beaten rocks near by yield cowries and other shells in some
abundance; and I do not know anywhere of a pleasanter picnic day than that
you can spend there.

Finally, Hilo is one of the very few places on these islands where you
can see a truly royal sport--the surf-board. It requires a rough day and
a heavy surf, but with a good day it is one of the finest sights in the
world.

The surf-board is a tough plank about two feet wide and from six to twenty
feet long, usually made of the bread-fruit-tree. Armed with these, a party
of tall, muscular natives swim out to the first line of breakers, and,
watching their chance to duck under this, make their way finally, by the
help of the under-tow, into the smooth water far off: beyond all the surf.
Here they bob up and down on the swell like so many ducks, watching their
opportunity. What they seek is a very high swell, before which they place
themselves, lying or kneeling on the surf-board. The great wave dashes
onward, but as its bottom strikes the ground, the top, unretarded in its
speed and force, breaks into a huge comber, and directly before this the
surf-board swimmer is propelled with a speed which we timed and found to
exceed forty miles per hour. In fact, he goes like lightning, always just
ahead of the breaker, and apparently downhill, propelled by the vehement
impulse of the roaring wave behind him, yet seeming to have a speed and
motion of his own.

It is a very surprising sight to see three or four men thus dashed for
nearly a mile toward the shore at the speed of an express train, every
moment about to be overwhelmed by a roaring breaker, whose white crest
was reared high above and just behind them, but always escaping this
ingulfment, and propelled before it. They look, kneeling or lying on their
long surf-boards, more like some curious and swift-swimming fish--like
dolphins racing, as it seemed to me--than like men. Once in a while, by
some mischance the cause of which I could not understand, the swimmer
_was_ overwhelmed; the great comber overtook him; he was flung over and
over like a piece of wreck, but instantly dived, and re-appeared beyond
and outside of the wave, ready to take advantage of the next. A successful
shot launched them quite high and dry on the beach far beyond where we
stood to watch. Occasionally a man would stand erect upon his surf-board,
balancing himself in the boiling surf without apparent difficulty.