298 THE OCEAN. 



a sort of stage, where the rocks are abrupt, in such 

 a manner that it shall project far over the water : 

 then they chase one another along the board, each 

 in turn leaping from the end into the sea. They are 

 also fond of diving from the yard-arms or bowsprit 

 of a ship. But the most favourite pastime of all, and 

 one in which ail classes and ages, and both sexes, 

 engage with peculiar delight, is swimming in the 

 surf. Mr. Ellis has seen some of the highest chiefs, 

 between fifty and sixty years of age, large and cor- 

 pulent men, engage in this game with as much 

 interest as children. A board about six feet long 

 and a foot wide, slightly thinner at the edges than 

 at the middle, is prepared for this amusement, 

 stained and polished, and preserved with great care 

 by being constantly oiled, and hung up in their dwell- 

 ings. With this in his hand, which he calls the 

 wave-sliding board, each native repairs to the reef, 

 particularly when the sea is running high, and the 

 surf is dashing in with more than ordinary violence, 

 as on such occasions the pleasure is the greater. 

 They choose a place where the rocks are twenty or 

 thirty feet under water, and shelve for a quarter of 

 a mile or more out to sea. The waves break at this 

 distance, and the whole space between it and the 

 shore is one mass of boiling foam. Each person 

 now swims, pushing his board before him, out to 

 sea, diving under the waves as they curl and break, 

 until he is arrived outside the rocks. He now 

 lays himself flat on his breast along his board, 

 and waits the approach of a huge billow ; when 

 it comes, he adroitly balances himself on its sum- 



