The run to Hilo was made in about forty hours, the steamer making several stops on the way. It rained "cats and dogs" when the party landed, but as all the baggage had been wrapped in water-proof coverings, nothing was damaged. Arrangements were speedily made for departure on the following morning without regard to the weather: horses and guides were engaged, the best animals being selected for the saddles and others for packing purposes, and a substantial lunch was made ready for the mid-day meal. Doctor Bronson insisted that the horses should all be freshly shod before starting, and an extra supply of shoes and nails carried along. The road goes over the lava-beds for nearly the whole distance, and if a horse loses a shoe he will go lame in a very few minutes, so rough and cutting is the lava.
SURF-BATHING AT HILO.
Fortunately the morning was fine, and the bay of Hilo presented a pretty appearance. Groves of palm and other tropical trees lined the shore, the surf broke in regular pulsations upon the curving stretch of beach, and was made animate by dozens of men and boys at play in the waves. For the first time our friends saw some of the sport in the water for which the islanders are famous, though less so at present than in the days that are gone. Fred thus described it:
"Each man had a surf-board, which was a thick plank twelve or fifteen feet long and perhaps thirty inches wide, and said to be made from the trunk of a bread-fruit tree. There were five or six of the natives to whom we had promised half a dollar each for the performance. They pushed out with their planks to the first line of breakers and managed to dip under it and swim along by the help of the under-tow. They passed the second line in the same way, and finally got beyond the entire stretch of surf into comparatively smooth water.
"Then they tossed up and down for a while, waiting for their chance. What they wanted was an unusually high swell, and they tried to find a place in front of it so that it would sweep them towards the shore just where it broke into a comber. They tried several times but failed, and we began to get out of patience.
"At last they got what they had waited for, while some were kneeling on their planks and others lying extended with their faces downward, and just ahead of the great comber they swept on at a speed of little, if any, less than forty miles an hour. There they were just ahead of the breaker, and apparently sliding downhill; one of them was swamped by it, but he dived and came up behind the wave and made ready for the next. The others kept on, and were flung high and dry by the surf, and as soon as they could rise from their planks they ran towards us to receive their pay. One of the fellows stood erect on his plank while in the surf, just as the Nubians at the first cataract of the Nile stand up while descending through the foaming water."
