370 AMUSEMENTS. [1810. 



if the bather is dismounted from his board, or thrown from 

 the wave on which he has placed himself, nothing daunted 

 by the failure, he attempts to reach another, and though still 

 unsuccessful, will persevere till he is obliged to return to the 

 beach, at which he often arrives panting for breath and com- 

 pletely exhausted by his efforts. This is esteemed glorious 

 sport by all ages and classes, and both sexes engage in it in- 

 discriminately, with nothing on but the maro. 



Lascivious dances, or hulas, are not uncommon, though 

 the civil authorities and missionaries make every exertion to 

 prevent such displays. Their music consists principally of 

 drumming on hollow vessels or calabashes, or on the native 

 drum, which is made of a hollow log, with a piece of 

 shark skin drawn over the end. Foreign instruments have 

 been introduced, as a matter of course, and the violin, the 

 pipe, and the trumpet, may now frequently be heard in the 

 fashionable assemblies held in the drinking houses of Hono- 

 lulu. 



Riding on horseback is as much of a passion with the 

 Sandwich Islander, as with the sailor when ashore. All 

 classes and conditions look upon this as their favorite pas- 

 time. They will mount without saddle or stirrups — the wo- 

 men sitting astride like the Peruvian senorita ; anything 

 serves for a bridle ; and once fairly seated, away they go with 

 a loud hurrah, dashing over hill and plain at a furious rate. 



All who are not restrained by their religious principles, or 

 through fear of the missionaries, are much addicted to gam- 

 bling, either with cards or dice, in the use of which many of 

 the natives have become very expert. They have, also, a 

 kind of thimble-rigging among them, which is called buhe- 

 nehene : in this game a stone is hidden underneath various 

 colored piles of tapa by one of the party, and the others guess 

 where it is concealed, each player pointing to the pile where 

 he supposes it to be hidden with a short stick. Throwing 

 quoits, too, is much practiced; and there is another game, 

 called maiku, which consists in hurling stones in a narrow 

 trench dug in the ground, sometimes a mile in length,— ha 



