THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 281 



Tv^cks are abrupt, in such a manner that it sliall 

 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 all 

 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 corpulent 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 dwellings. 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, pusliing 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 summit, and, paddling 

 with his hands, is borne on the crest of the advancing 



