which in my excitement I had forgotten, of keeping
the prow of the board pointed upward as I rode.

Often as I repeated this instruction in my mind, firmly as I
determined to remember it while I toiled sea-ward again with the
coffin-lid, the result was always the same. A moment of rest in the
unresting waves, a quick, agile spring, a moment of mad,
intoxicating joy, and then--disaster. I became a mass of bruises, the
skin scraped inch by inch from my chest by contact with the rough
wood. I would not give up until I had to, and then for a week I was
convalescing.

One stiff ache from head to foot, I lay ignominiously on the sand,
and watched Exploding Eggs, with a piece of box not bigger than a
fat man's shirt-front, take wave after wave, standing on the board,
dashing far across the breakers to the shore, with never a failure,
while Gedge's little half-breed daughter, a beautiful fairy-like
creature, darted upon the sea as a butterfly upon a zephyr.

After several weeks of effort and mishap, one day the secret came to
me like a flash, and the trick was learned. I had been using the
great board and was weary. I exchanged with Exploding Eggs for a
plank three feet long and fourteen inches wide. Almost exhausted, I
waited as usual with the butt of the board against my stomach for
the incoming breaker to be just behind and above me, and then leaped
forward to kick out vigorously, the board pressed against me and my
hands extended along its sides, to get in time with the wave.

But the wave was upon me before I had thought to execute these
instructions, I straightened myself out rigidly, and lo! I shot in
like a torpedo on the very top of the billow, holding the point of
the board up, yelling like a Comanche Indian. So fast, so straight
did I go, that it was all I could do to swerve in the shallow water
and not be hurled with force on the sand.

"_Metai! Me metai!_" cried my friends in excited congratulation,
while like all men who succeed by accident, I stood proudly, taking
the plaudits as my due.

From that afternoon I had most exhilarating sport, and indeed, this
is the very king of amusements for fun and exercise. Skeeing,
tobogganing, skating, all land sports fade before the thrills of this;
nor will anything give such abounding health and joy in living as
surf-riding in sunny seas.

A hundred afternoons on Atuona Bay I spent in this exhilarating
pastime. To it we added embellishments, multiplying excitements