298 THE OCEAN. 
asort 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 
ofaship. 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 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- 
