Introduction
Wm. C. Allen's article first appeared in The Christian Intelligencer, circa 1919?

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I have been asked to write a short article for my young friends about the children of Honolulu.
If you look at the map you will find that the Hawaiian Islands, in which the city of Honolulu is situated, are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
These Islands have high mountains, gardens full of lovely flowers, winding roadways, rocks and sandy beaches upon which the great ocean thunders its foaming waves.
They are very beautiful.
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One of the sports of Honolulu, engaged in by expert swimmers, is surf-board bathing.
This is very exciting.
Some of the boys of the islands - especially the native Hawaiians - learn the art when quite young.
A lad, say fifteen years of age, will get a surf-board about eighteen inches wide and six feet long, made exactly the right shape for the purpose.
He goes out into the surf and learns how to get on the board face down, and be carried along on the crest of a wave toward the land, catching the wave just in time to do so.
Meanwhile he paddles and steers with his hands.
After a while he learns something still more difficult, which is to stand up while the surf-board is being whirled along on top of a big breaker.
If he tumbles off the board, as of course he does many, many times, until he becomes proficient, he swims to it, grasps it, and
makes another effort.
As he becomes older and more expert, he ventures out into the deeper sea, far from land, where he learns to travel in this wonderful fashion, possibly fully a quarter of a mile or more, standing up on the board all the time in the seethingwaves.

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The Sailors' Magazine and Seamen's Friend.  American Seamen's Friend Society, New York. Volume 92 Number 1, January 1920 Hathi Trust https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.ah6gf9

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