ood deal of leisure, upon whose
shoulders as yet civilization has laid none of its heavier burdens, are
naturally prone to amusement, and cultivate their numerous national
sports with a good deal of energy and skill. Foremost amongst these is
the well-known pastime of surf-swimming--a pastime the origin of which
it is not difficult to understand. It is one in which both men and women
join. Armed with a surf-board--a flat piece of wood, about four feet
long by two feet wide, pointed at each end--which they put edge-wise in
front of them, they swim out into the broad and beautiful bay, and dive
under the surf-crested billows of the Pacific. When at a certain
distance from the land, a distance regulated by the swimmer's measure of
strength and address, he chooses a large wave, and either astride, or
kneeling, or standing upon his board, allows himself to be swept in
shore upon its curling crest with headlong speed. The spectator might
almost fancy him to be mounted upon the sea-horse of ancient myths, and
holding its grey curling mane, as it snorts and champs and plunges
shoreward, wrapped in spray and foam. To this vigorous sport the
Hawaiians are exceedingly partial. They are almost to the manner born,
for from their earliest childhood they live an amphibious life, and
never seem happier than when they are diving, swimming, bathing, or
playing tricks in the bright emerald waters that wash the smiling shores
of their favoured isle, or in those of the pleasant river that flows by
the groves and gardens of Hilo.

On a sunny afternoon half the population of the latter town may be seen
"disporting themselves in, upon, and beneath the water." Climbing the
steep and rugged rocks that form the opposite bank, they take headers
and footers and siders from any elevation under five-and-twenty feet,
diving and swimming in every imaginable attitude, and with a kind of
easy and spontaneous grace that commands admiration. One of their great
feats is thus described: A couple of natives undertake to jump from a
precipice, one hundred feet high, into the river below, clearing in
their descent a rock, which at about a distance of twenty feet from the
summit, projects as far from the face of the cliff. The two men--lithe,
tall, and strong--are seen standing on the green height, their long hair
confined by a wreath of leaves and flowers, while a similar wreath is
twisted round the waist. With a keen, quick glance they measure the
distance, an