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walpole : surfboard riding, ruad, syria, 1851

Fredrick Walpole : Surfboard Riding, Ruad, Syria, 1851.

Extract from
Walpole, Frederick:
The Ansayrii, (or Assassins,) with travels in the further East, in 1850-51.
Including a visit to Ninevah.
Volume 3
R. Bentley, New Burlington Street, London, 1851, page 398.

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Introduction.
Walpole's observations are likely to be acurrate, the title page of this work notes that he was also the "Author of Four Years in the Pacific".
Although the earlier work includes a visit to the Hawaiian islands, it does not record surf riding.
However Walpole was almost certainly aware of it, as implied in his comparison between riding prone and standing.

See
1848 Fred Walpole : Aquatic Polynesians.
Extacts from Four Years in the Pacific in Her Majesty's Ship "Collingwood" from 1844 to 1848, Richard Bentley, London, 1850.

Also see:
http://bloggingthecasbah.blogspot.com/2010/03/quest-begins-surfing-syria.html

Volume III
Page 398

The boys of Ruad pass their existence almost in the water, and use a surf-board very similar to that of the Sandwich Islands, except that here they sit and lean on it, while the Kanaka stands.
My windows, overlooking the western sea, were enlivened with their cries.

" Bahharr el kebir Allah y jibble,
Bakharr el yereer na meeredom."

" A heavy sea God give us,
A calm sea we do not want,"

seemed the burden of their song.

Walpole, Frederick:
The Ansayrii, (or Assassins,) with travels in the further East, in 1850-51.
Including a visit to Ninevah.
Volume 3
R. Bentley, New Burlington Street, London, 1851.

Geoff Cater (2011) : Fredrick Walpole : Surfboard Riding, Ruad, Syria, 1851.
http://www.surfresearch.com.au/1851_Walpole_Ruad_Syria.html