“Twenty or thirty of the natives, taking each a long narrow board, rounded at the ends, set out together from the shore. The first wave they meet they plunge under, and, suffering it to roll over them, rise again beyond it, and make the best of their way by swimming out into the sea. The second wave is encountered in the same manner with the first; the great difficulty consisting in seizing the proper moment of diving under it, which, if missed, the person is caught by the surf, and driven back again with great violence; and all his dexterity is then required to prevent himself from being dashed against the rocks. As soon as they have gained, by these repeated efforts, the smooth water beyond the surf, they lay themselves at length on their board, and prepare for their return. As the surf consists of a number of waves, of which every third is remarked to be always much larger than the others, and to flow higher on the shore, the rest breaking in the intermediate space, their first object is to place themselves on the summit of the largest surge, by which they are driven along with amazing rapidity toward the shore.
“If by mistake they should place themselves on one of the smaller waves, which breaks up before they reach the land, or should not be able to keep their plank in a proper direction on the top of the swell, they are left exposed to the fury of the next, and, to avoid it, are obliged again to dive and regain the place from which they set out.
“Those who succeed in their object of reaching the shore have still the greatest danger to encounter. The coast being guarded by a chain of rocks, with here and there a small opening between them, they are obliged to steer their board through one of these, or, in case of failure, to quit it before they reach the rocks, and, plunging under the wave, make the best of their way back again. This is reckoned very disgraceful, and is also attended with the loss of the board, which I have often seen, with great terror, dashed to pieces at the very moment the islander quitted it. The boldness and address with which we saw them perform these difficult and dangerous manœuvres was altogether astonishing, and is scarcely to be credited.”
These swimmers used often to pass nearly a mile seaward, in order to enjoy the rapid motion of their return as long as possible. Both sexes and all ranks unite in it, and even the very chiefs themselves, who have attained to the corpulency which they so much admire, join in the game of surf-swimming with the meanest of their subjects. Some of the performers attain to a wonderful degree of skill, and, not content with lying on the board, sit, kneel, and even stand on it as they are hurled shoreward by the giant waves. The boards are of various sizes, according to the age and stature of the owner. For adults they are about six feet in length. They are slightly convex on both sides, and are kept very smooth—all surf-swimmers cherishing a pride in the condition of their boards, and taking care to keep them well polished and continually rubbed with cocoa-nut oil. The artist has finely [represented] on the following page the marvellous conquest of the sea by these islanders.
Such utter mastery of the waves can only be obtained by familiarity with the water from earliest childhood. A Sandwich Island child can swim as soon as it can walk, if not sooner, the mothers taking them from the breast, laying them on the surface of the water and encouraging them to kick about as if lying on their mats ashore. One writer mentions his encounter with an object which he took to be a very large frog, but which turned out to be a Kanaka (i. e. Sandwich Island) baby, which was lying on its back and disporting itself quite at its ease.
Indeed, in the mind of a Sandwich Islander there seems to be no connection between the ideas of water and danger, neither does it enter his imagination that any human being is unable to swim. Consequently, there have been several instances where white men have fallen into the water and have been almost drowned, though in the presence of the natives, simply because the idea that any one could be endangered by falling into the water never occurred to them.
SURF SWIMMING BY SANDWICH ISLANDERS.
(See [page 1092].)
They are equally skilful in managing their canoes, and have a curious mode of extracting amusement out of them. A number of men will sometimes paddle a canoe after dressing themselves up in a most ludicrous fashion. They take large empty gourds, and put them over their heads, after cutting holes in them corresponding with the eyes and nose, so that the effect is not at all unlike that of a turnip lantern. To the upper part of the gourd is attached a bunch of slender green twigs, which look at a little distance like a plume of feathers, and to the lower part are suspended a number of narrow strips of cloth, looking like a long beard. Their appearance is shown in [illustration No. 2], on the 1089th page.