surfresearch.com.au  roussel : first surfers in tahiti, 2005

Quand j'ai commence a surfer, je ne savais pas que mes ancetres etaient des surfeurs.
C'est seulement beaucoup plus tard que j'ai appris que des missionnaires avaient interdit la pratique du surf sur l'lle... Mais nous, nous avons finalement pris la releve de nos anciens pour perpetuer ce sport et aujourd'hui, les nouvelles generations continuent de s'y interesser et le font evoluer a leur tour...
Arsene Harehoe
Tahiti, septembre 2004

A la recherche de taus les documents qui vont pouvoir nous eclairer, no us parcourons des magazines, livres, guides de voyage, encyclopedies, dictionnaires et visionnons des reportages et films.
Mais voila que finalement its ne sont pas d'accord !
La plupart ant un large penchant pour ne nom mer que les lles de Hawai'i comme lieu originel du surf... Mais bon, com me quelques grands guides de voyage affirment que Tahiti et son archipel ant vu le surf avant Hawai'i, c'est dur de ne pas continuer a fouiller.
Alors nous ecumons les rayons des bibliotheques de l'lle et c'est finalement la que nous trouvons les precieux textes originaux qui vont pouvoir apporter des preuves : de vieux documents qui datent de l'epoque ou les premiers Europeens ant sejourne en terres tahitiennes et y ant observe la pratique du surf.
Il n'y a finalement aucune preuve permettant d'affirmer que Tahiti connaissait le surf avant Hawai'i, car tela remonte a une periode bien trap lointaine...

Qu'est-ce que l'on sait des surfeurs d'il y a plus de cent ans ?
Eh bien, en 1769, James Cook, le commandant anglais du vaisseau du roi l'Endeavour, a clairement vu et compte « dix ou douze indiens » qui surfaient.
Il faut com prendre « indigenes » (ou tout simplement « habitants de l'lle ») quand'il ecrit « indiens ».

James Morrison, qui etait aussi anglais, mais second maltre a bord du navire Le Bounty, a ecrit en 1788 que les Tahitiens « etaient tres nombreux a pratiquer ce sport » et a ajoute plus loin que « les chefs etaient en generalles meilleurs, mais... que leurs femmes ne leur etaient pas inferieures ».
On peut aussi lire que « les enfants pratiquaient ce sport sur les petites vogues ».

Dans un autre texte enfin, William Ellis, un missionnaire anglais, a vu dans l'eau, en 1830 « des individus de tous Tangs, de tous ages » et, un jour, il a compte au meme endroit « dnquante a cent personnes ».

Remarquez bien qu'aucun de ces observateurs ne nous parle de regles de priorite dans les vagues et pourtant ils ne mentionnent pas non plus d'incidents ni de bagarres entre les nombreux nageurs. De plus, on ne sait pas si ces ancetres « indiens » partaient surfer en famille, entre amis ou encore tout seuls.
Est-ce qu'il y a des photos des surfeurs de l'epoque?
Hum... Eh bien non, tout simplement parce que le surf a disparu avant la fin du XIX siecle et qu'aucun photographe n'avait encore eu le temps d'immortaliser un de ces anciens surfeurs...

Est-ce que des Europeens ant essaye de surfer a cette epoque ?
C'est peu probable.
Vous savel, les premiers navigateurs ant d'abord observe comment vivaient ces populations... qui leur etaient encore etrangeres !

Voyons comment ces Europeens ont percu cette activite :
James Morrison l'a defini com me un « amusement », un « sport auquel les Tahitiens consacraient plusieurs heures ».
William Bligh, un amiral anglais naviguant sur Le Bounty, lui, a note en 1789 que « le plaisir qu'ils prenaient dans cet amusement etait au-dessus de tout », mais a egalement trouve qu'il « etait essentiellement bon pour eux, car meme dans leurs plus forges et meilleurs canoes, its etaient tant sujets a des accidents de chavirements, que leurs vies dependaient de leurs capacites a nager et a rester longtemps dans l'eau ».
En 1835, Jacques- Antoine Moerenhout, ethnologue et consul d'origine belge au service de la ...

James Morrison, who was also English, but second maltre has edge of the ship Bounty, wrote into 1788 that Tahitiens “were very numerous A to practise this sport” and has additions further “the chiefs were in generalles better, but… that their wives were not lower to them”.
One can as read as “the children practised this sport on the small vogues”.

In another text finally, William Ellis, an English missionary, saw in water, in 1830 “of the individuals of all Tangs, of all ages” and, one day, it has account at the same place “dnquante has hundred people”. Notice well that none of these observers speaks to us about rules about priority in the waves and yet they do not mention either incidents nor brawls between the many swimmers.
Moreover, one does not know if these “Indian” ancestors left surfer in family, between friends or all alone.
Are there photographs of the surfers of the time?
Hum… Eh well not, quite simply because surfing disappeared before the the XIX century end and that no photographer had still had the time of immortaliser one of these former surfers…
Of European the ant tests of surfer at that time?
It is not very probable.
You savel, the first navigators ant initially observes how these populations lived… which their were still etrangeres!
Let us see how these European has percu this activity:
James Morrison defined COM me a “recreation”, a “sport to which Tahitiens devoted several hours”.

William Bligh, an English admiral sailing on Bounty, has note into 1789 to him that “the pleasure whom they took in this recreation was above all”, but  also finds that it “was primarily good for them, because same in their more forging mills and better canoes, its was prone as well has accidents of capsizings, as their lives depended on their capacities have to swim and have to remain a long time in water”.

In 1835, Jacques Antoine Moerenhout, ethnologist and Belgian consul of origin to the service of…

Est-ce que le surf de l'epoque ressemblait au surf de maintenant ?
Eh bien oui !
Les Tahitiens aux XVIII et XIX siecles surfaient comme nous... d'apres ces recits!
Pour preuve, des 1768, Louis Antoine de Bougainville, Francais et commandant la fregate du roi La Boudeuse, a rapporte dans ses notes que les insulaires « etaient capabes de chevaucher la crete des vagues en se tenant debout sur des planches ».
C'est bien resume, non?

Ici, dans un autre texte, on peut lire que William Anderson, chirurgien et naturaliste anglais sur le navire La Resolution, a vu en 1777, « un homme qui ramait dans sa pirogue avec une extreme rapidite » et a note precisement que celui-ci « s'eloi-

For proof, of the 1768, Louis Antoine de Bougainville, French and ordering the frigate of king Boudeuse,  reports in his notes that the islanders “were capabes to overlap the crest of the waves while being held upright on boards”.
It is well summarized, not?

Here, in another text, one can read that William Anderson, English surgeon and naturalist on the ship the Resolution, saw in 1777, “a man who rowed in his dugout with an extreme speed” and has note precisely that this one “eloi-

...Poursuivons!
Dans un texte, il est note que William Bligh a vu des insulaires « en equilibre sur leur pagaie ».
Et dans un autre texte, William Ellis a precise qu'« its voguaient environnes d'ecume » et que « parfois, its s'arretaient parmi es roches de corai sur lesqulles la vague allait se briser en une superbe gerbe » ou encore qu'« its s'elevaient en haut des vagues et etaient presque enveloppes de poussiere d'eau... poussant des cris de joie et s'encourageant mutuellement.
Le bruit qu'ils faisaient rendait presque imperceptible Ie mugissement de la mer. »

J.A. Moerenhout a observe que les surfeurs « gagnaient la mer;: pLongeant sous les vagues qui n'etaient pas assez fortes, les laissant ainsi fouler sur leur tete.
Les cris pousses par les spectateurs, toujours reunis en grand nombre sur Ie rivage, leur annoncaient la venue des vagues plus elevees »... puis qu'ils etaient « emportes avec la rapidite d'une fleche vers la rive, sur laquelle on craignait de les retrouver en Lambeaux. »

Sinon... Quelles planches etaient utilisees ?
Eh bien, William Ellis a parle d'« une petite planche qu'ils appelaient papa fahee » et aussi d'une « courte planche plate et pointue ».
Le mot « fa'ahe'e » designe encore aujourd'hui le surf a Tahiti, comme horue !
Sinon, J.A. Moerenhout, lui, a note ailleurs qu'« en general, its avaient une planche de trois a quatre pieds de long », c'est-a-dire d'un peu plus d'un metre.
Et enfin, John Muggridge Orsmond, missionnaire anglais, sur l'ile entre 1817 et 1856, a vu « une longue planche etroite ».
Par contre, nous ne savons rien d'apres ces textes sur les gens qui fabriquaient les planches.
Et avec quel materiau ?
Quel bois ?
Les planches avaient-elles des sortes d'attaches pour les pieds ou les mains et avaient-elles des derives?
Etaient-elles sujettes a un bapteme, un rituel accompagnant la mise a l'eau?
Une planche appartenait-elle a un individu seul ou etait-elle pretee, partagee?
Les planches etaient-elles d'une longueur determinee par l'age, le sexe ou le rang social du surfeur? Etaient-elles taillees differemment ...

This term “ehororoe” is surely the equivalent of the word tahitien “horue” which wants to say surfing! … Let us continue! I

n a text, it is note that William Bligh saw islanders “balances some on their paddle”.
And in another text, William Ellis has precise that “its sailed surround of scum” and that “sometimes, its stopped among are rocks of will corai on lesqulles the wave was going to break in a superb sheaf” or that “its rose in top of the waves and were almost envelopes of water dust… pushing cries of joy and encouraging themselves mutually. The noise that they made returned almost unperceivable IE mooing of the sea. ”

J.A. Moerenhout  observes that the surfers “gained the sea;: plunging under the waves which were not strong enough, thus letting them press on their head.
The cries growths by the spectators, always brought together in great number on the shore, them annoncaient the arrival of the higher waves”… then than they were “carry with the speed of an arrow towards the bank, on which one feared to find them in Scraps. ”
If not… Which boards were utilisees?
Eh well, William Ellis A speaks about “a small board which they called dad fahee” and also of a “short board punt and pointed”.
The word “fa' ahe' e” indicates surfing still today has Tahiti, like horue!
If not, J.A. Moerenhout, has note elsewhere than “in general, its to him had a board of three be four feet length”, i.e. of a little more than one meter.

And finally, John Muggridge Orsmond, missionary English, on the island between 1817 and 1856, saw “a long narrow board”.
On the other hand, we do not know anything according to these texts about people who manufactured the boards.
And with which material?
Which wood?
Did the boards have they kinds of fasteners for the feet or the hands and had they derivatives?
Were they prone has a baptism, a ritual accompanying the setting has water?
A board did pretee belong has an individual alone or was, partagee?
Were the boards they a length determined by the age, the sex or the social status of the surfer?
Were they taillees differently…

Est-ce que l'on a retrouve des planches de l'epoque?
Non.
Sachez que les planches de surf, autrefois en bois, peuvent pourrir tres vite, dans une lle tropicale comme Tahiti, sans certaines precautions et donc ne pas se conserver.
Seuls des objets resistants, com me de la pierre, auraient pu parvenir jusqu'a no us en bon etat.
Mais peut-etre, apres tout, qu'un Europeen a mis a l'abri une de ces planches a l'epoque et qu'elle trone aujourd'hui dans un riche saLon francais ou anglais - ou est simplement perdue dans une cave!

Et si certaines etaient encore enfouies dans le soL, ou sous le sable du lagon?
C'est vrai que des decouvertes archeologiques pourraient nous apporter des reponses plus precises sur cette epoque, mais comme c'est souvent le cas, plus le temps avancera, plus Les documents se deterioreront et pLus Les memoires s'eteindront, que ce soit a Tahiti ou a Hawai'i !... Mais revenons sur les ecrits des Europeens.
Vous devez avoir compris que ces textes sont desormais nos seules references sur les anciennes habitudes locales de surf.
Il y a pas mal de lacunes dans leurs observations et de points sur lesquels on aurait aime avoir des reponses aujourd'hui, mais...

Est-ce parce qu'ils ne sont pas restes assez longtemps sur place?
Qui, et souvenez-vous que les voyageurs occidentaux avaient des tas de nouvelles donnees a rapporter, donc a observer et a comprendre si possible.
Malgre la decouverte de ce sport inedit pour eux, les Europeens ant surement ete marques par de nombreuses autres coutumes locales.

Ces textes parlent-ils des lieux ou le surf a ete observe?
Un petit peu !
Les premiers Europeens accostaient relativement souvent aux memes endroits, deja connus, et c'est de la qu'ils faisaient la majorite de Leurs observations...
Alors, leurs temoignages ne nous donneront pas une liste exhaustive des spots de l'epoque ! ... James Cook a vu des surfeurs
« a un des endroits, en petit nombre, ou l'fle n'etait pas environnee par des reafs et ou par consequent une haute elevee brisait sur la cote >>.
James Morrison a precise, lui, qu'il y avait des surfeurs
« dans la baie de Matavai.
La houle venant du recif du Dauphin y etait si haute qu'elle brisait par-dessus le navire>>
et a ajoute que
« lorsque les vents d'ouest dominaient, une haute de tres hautes vogues venait briser sur la plage >>...
et, plus loin, que
« l'endroit choisi etait celui ou les vogues brisaient avec le plus de violence >>.
Dans un autre texte entin, William Ellis a note des surfeurs
« en bordure du recif fermant le port de Fare, a Huahine>>,
une lle de l'archipel tahitien ...

That questions which the European travellers did not answer!
Are A boards of the time found?
Not.
Will know that the boards of surfing, formerly out of wood, can rot very quickly, in a tropical lle like Tahiti, without some care and thus not to preserve itself.
Only resistant objects, made of the stone, could have arrived to No custom in good condition.
But perhaps, after all, that European put has the shelter one of these boards at the time and that it trone today in a rich person French living room or English - or is simply lost in a cellar!
And some were so still hidden in the ground, or under the sand of the lagoon?
It is true that archaeological discoveries could bring answers more to us precise over this time, but as it is often the case, plus time will advance, the documents will worsen and more the memories will die out, than it either have Tahiti or have Hawai' I! …

But let us reconsider the writings of the European ones.
You must have understood that these texts are from now on our only references on the old local practices of surfing.
There are no badly gaps in their observations and of points on which one would have likes to have answers today, but… Is this because they are not remainders long enough on the spot?
Who, and remember that the Western travellers had heaps of new data has to pay, therefore has to observe and has to include/understand if possible.
In spite of the discovery of this new sport for them, European the ant surely be marks by many other local habits.
Do these texts speak about the places or surfing was observes?
A little bit!
The first European ones relatively often accosted at the same places, already known, and it is which they did the majority of Their observations…
Then, their testimonys will not give us an exhaustive list of the spots of the time! …
James Cook saw surfers “one of the places has, in small number, or the fle was not environnee by reafs and or consequently high high broke on the dimension >>.
James Morrison has specifies, him, that there were surfers “in bay of Matavai. The swell coming from the reef of the Dolphin was so high there that it broke over the navire>> and has additions that “when the winds of west dominated, high of very high waves came to break on the beach >>… and, further, than “the selected place was that or the vogues broke with the most violence >>.
In another text entin, William Ellis has note of the surfers “in edge of the reef closing the port of Fare, Huahine>>  an lsle of the archipelago tahitien…

BUCHET Christian, Decouverte de Tahiti,
Paris, Editions France-Empire, 1993

CHAUCHE Eric, dans Trip Surf, n071, Biarritz, decembre/janvier 2003

DORRA Martine, Tafa'i et Rougeur du ciel,
Paris, Editions Syros, 2002

DROLLET Manoa, dans Surf Session, no178, Biarritz, mai 2002

ELLIS William, A la recherche de la Polynesie d'autrefois,
Paris, Publication de la Societe des Oceanistes n025, 1972

FAVRE Jean-Fran~ois, Legendes polynesiennes,
Tahiti, Editions Haere Po, 1992

FINNEY Ben, Faahee, l'ancien sport de Tahiti, dans Bulletin de la societe des etudes oceaniennes,
Pape'ete, 1959

FINNEY Ben et HOUSTON James D., Surfing, the sport of hawaiian kings
[Le surf, sport des rois hawaiiens],
Rutland, Vermont, Charles E. Tuttle Co.,juin 1966

HAMILTON Laird, dans Surf Session, no159, Biarritz, octobre 2000
 

HENRY Teuira, Ancient Tahiti [Tahiti aux temps anciens],
Honolulu, Bishop Museum Bulletin n° 48, 1928

LINGE Gabriel,
L'etrange destin d'Hawai'i,
Paris, Editions Robert Laffont, 1975

MOERENHOUT JoA, Voyages aux iles du grand ocean,
Paris, Editions Maisonneuve, 1837

MORRISON James, Journal,
Paris, Publication de la Societe des Oceanistes no14,1966

OLIVER Douglas Lo, Ancient tahitian society [L'ancienne societe tahitienne],
Honolulu, University Press of Hawaii, 1974
 

PONS Patrick, L'histoire du sport a Tahiti,
Pape'ete, tomes I et II, 1992

SALMON Marau Taaroa, Memoires,
Paris, Publication de la Societe des Oceanistes n027, 1971
 

SALMON Marautaaroa, Legende de Hinaraurea et de la chenille de Papeiha,
dans Bulletin de la Societe des Etudes Oceaniennes, n059, Pape'ete, mars 1937

SAURA Bruno, Bobby: Visions polynesiennes,
Sydney/Pape'ete, Editions Pacific Bridge-Tupuna, 1992
 

SCEMLA Jean-Jo, Le voyage en Polynesie,
Paris, Editions Robert Laffont, 1994

STIMSON J-F, Songs and tales of the seas kings, [Chansons et histoires des rois de la mer],
Salem, Peabody Museum, 1957
 

VERLOMME Hugo, 100 pages de vagues,
Petite anthologie marine no1, Urrugne, Editions Pimientos, 2003

YOUNG Jodi, dans Trip Surf, n072, Biarritz, fevrierjmars

surfresearch.com.au

---

Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Library
2006

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY

by the

ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE
LIBRARY

1980
 
 

OUR HAWAII
 
 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

KEW YORK - BOSTON CHICAGO ' DALLAS
ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED

LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO
 
 
 

JACK LONDON AT WAIKIKI, 1915.
 
 
 

OUR HAWA
 
 
 

BY

CHARMIAN KITTREDGE LONDON

(MRS. JACK LONDON)
 
 

gorfc

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1917
http://www.archive.org/details/ourhawaii00londuoft

Page 53

... cool corner talking of our visit to the Beach, when a bearded
young man stepped briskly up, with :

"You're Jack London, aren't you? My name is
Ford."

"Oh, yes," Jack returned, quickly on his feet. Al-
exander Hume Ford. I heard you were in Honolulu,
and have wanted to see you. I've read lots of your stuff

and all of your dandy articles in The Century"

Mr. Ford could hardly spare time to look his pleasure,
nor to be introduced to me, before rushing on, in a breath-
less way that made one wonder what was the hurry :

"Now look here, London," in a confidential undertone.
"I've got a lot of whacking good material for stories,
you understand. / can't write stories there's no use
my trying. My fiction is rot rot, I tell you. I can
write travel stuff of sorts, but it takes no artist to do that.
You can write stories the greatest stories in the world

and I'll tell you what : I'll jot down some of the things
I've got hold of here and everywhere, and you're welcome
to them. . . . What d'you say?"

Jack suggested that he make three at our table, and
he talked a steady stream all through of information
about everything under the sky, it would seem, for he
has traveled widely. At present he is interested in re-
viving the old Hawaiian sport of surf-boarding on the
breakers, and promised to see us at Waikiki later on, and
show us how to use a board. When he left, we were able
to draw the first long breath in two hours. In his at-
mosphere one had the sense of being speeded up; but his
generous good nature was worth it.
 

Page 61
SEASIDE HOTEL, WAIKIKI BEACH,
HONOLULU, May 31, 1907.

"Waikiki! there is something in the very name that
smacks of the sea!" caroled a visitor in the late 'yos.
Waikiki the seaside resort of the world, for there is
nothing comparable to it, not only in the temperature of
its effervescent water, which averages 78 the year round,
but in the surroundings, as well as the unusual variety of
sports connected with it, surf-canoeing in the impressively
savage black-and-yellow dug-outs, surf-boarding, the an-
cient game of kings, fishing, sailing ; and all on a variously
shallow reef, where one may swim and romp forgetful
hours without necessarily going out of depth on the sandy
bottom. The cream- white curve of beach is for miles
plumed with coconut palms, and Diamond Head, "Leahi,"
that loveliest of old craters, which rounds in the south-
eastern end of the graceful crescent, is painted by every
shifting color, light, and shade, the day long, on its rose-
tawny, serrated steeps. And many's the sail comes
whitening around the point, yacht or schooner or full-
rigged ship, a human mote that catches the eye and sets
one a-dreaming of lately hailed home harbors and far
foreign ports with enchanting names.

Waikiki ! Waikiki ! We keep repeating the word, for
already it spells a new phase of existence. Here but a
scant twenty-four hours, and already Jack's Dream Har-
bor seems faint and distant, slipping into a mild and
pleasant, not imperative memory, for the spirit of storied
Waikiki has entered ours. The air seems full of wings, I
am so happy making home, this time a tent.

Page 63
<...>
Not twenty feet in front, where grass grows to the
water's edge at highest tide, the sands, sparkling under
blazing sunrays, are frilled by the lazy edges of the surf;
and the flawed tourmaline of the reef-waters, pale green,
or dull pink from underlying coral patches, stretches to the
low white line of breakers on the barrier reef some half-
mile seaward, while farthest beyond lies the peacock-blue
ribbon of the deep-sea horizon.

Page 72

Before breakfast, it is into the bliss-
ful warm tide, diving through bubbling combers, coming
up eyes level with tiny sails of fishermen beyond the
barrier reef. The pretty, pretty strand! All hours one
hears the steady, gentle boom and splash of the surf not
the big disturbing, ominous gnashing and roaring of the Pa-
cific Coast rollers, nor the distant carnivorous growlings off
the rock-jagged line of New England. And under sun or
moon, it is all a piece of beauty. Toward Diamond Head,
when the south wind drives, the swift breakers, like endless
charges of white cavalry, leap and surge shoreward, fling-
ing back long silver manes. The thrill of these landward
races never palls at Waikiki. One seems to vision Pharaoh's
Horses in mighty struggle against backwashing waters,
arriving nowhere, dying and melting impotent upon the
sand.

Jack, to whom beauty is never marred by knowledge
of its why and wherefore, has explained to me the physics
of a breaking wave.

"A wave is a communicated agitation," he says. "The
water that composes a wave really does not move. If
it moved, when you drop a stone in a pool and the ripples
widen in an increasing circle, there should be at the center
an increasing hole. So the water in the body of a wave
is stationary. If you observe a portion of the ocean's
surface, you will see that the same water rises and falls
endlessly to the agitation communicated by endless suc-
cessive waves. Then picture this communicated agitation
moving toward shore. As the land shoals, the bottom of
the wave hits first and is stopped. Water is fluid, and the
upper part of the wave not having been stopped, it keeps
on communicating its agitation, and moves on shoreward.
Ergo," says he, "something is bound to be doing, when
the top of a wave keeps on after the bottom has stopped,
dropped out from under. Of course, the wave- top starts
 
 

Page 73

to fall, forward, down, cresting, overcurling, and crashing.
So, don't you see ? don't you see ? " he warms to his illustra-
tion, "it is actually the bottom of the wave striking against
the rising land that causes the surf ! And where the land
shoals gradually, as inside this barrier reef at Waikiki,
the rising of the undulating water is as gradual, and a ride
of a quarter of a mile or more can be made shoreward on
the cascading face of a wave."

Alexander Hume Ford, true to promise, appeared to-
day with an enormous surf-board, made fun of the small
ones that had been lent us, and we went down to the sea to
learn something of hee-nalu, sport of Hawaiian kings. The
only endeaver of fish, flesh, and fowl, which Mr. Ford
seems not to have partially compassed, is that of the
feathered tribe undoubtedly from lack of time, for his
energy and ambition seem tireless enough even to grow
feathers. Jack, who seldom stops short of what he wants
to accomplish, finds this man most stimulating in an un-
selfish enthusiasm to revive neglected customs of elder
islands days, for the benefit of Hawaii and her adver-
tisement to the world. Although we have seen a num-
ber of natives riding the breakers, face downward, and
even standing upright, almost no white men appear to be
expert. Mr. Ford, born genius of pioneering and promot-
ing, swears he is going to make this islands pastime one of
the most popular on earth, and, judging by his personal
valor, he cannot fail.

The thick board, somewhat coffin-shaped, with rounded
ends, should be over six feet long for adults. This plank
is floated out to the breaking water, which can be done
either wading alongside or lying face-downward paddling,
and there you wait for the right wave. When you see it
coming, stand ready to launch the board on the gathering
slope, spring upon it, and keep on going if you can. Lie
fiat on your chest, hands grasping the sides of the large
end of the heavy timber, and steer with your feet. The
 
 

Page 74

expert, having gauged the right speed, rises cautiously to
his knees, to full stature, and then, erect with feet in the
churning foam, makes straight for the beach, rides up the
sparkling incline, and steps easily from his arrested sea-car.

A brisk breeze this afternoon, with a rising surf, brought
out the best men, and we saw some splendid natives at
close range, who took our breath away with their reckless,
beautiful performance. One, George Freeth, who is only
one quarter Hawaiian, is accounted the best surf-board
rider and swimmer in Honolulu.

When a gloriously bodied kanaka, naked but for a loin-
cloth carved against his shining bronze, takes form like a
miracle in the down-rushing smother of a breaking wave,
arms outstretched and heels winged with backward-stream-
ing spray, you watch, stricken of speech. And it is not
the sheer physical splendor of the thing that so moves one,
for lighting and informing this is an all dominating spirit
of joyful fearlessness and freedom that manifests an almost
visible soul, and that lends a slow thrilling of awe to one's
contemplation of the beauty and wonder of the human.
What was it an old Attic philosopher exclaimed? "Things
marvelous there are many, but among them all naught
moves more truly marvelous than man."

And our journalist friend, malihini, white-skinned, slim,
duplicated the act, and Jack murmured, " Gee ! What a
sport he is and what a sport it is for white men too !"
His glowing eyes, and a well-known firm expression about
the jaw, told me he would be satisfied with nothing less
than hours a day in the deep-water smokers. As it was,
in the small surf, he came safely in several times. I ac-
complished one successful landing, slipping up the beach
precisely to the feet of some stranger hotel guests, who were
not half so surprised as myself. It took some while to
learn to mount the board without help, for it is a cumbrous
and unruly affair in the heaving water.

The rising tide was populous with Saturday afternoon

(i) Working Garb in Elysium. (2) Duke Kahanamoku, 1915.

Page 75

bathers, but comparatively few women, except close in-
shore. A fleet of young kanaka surf -boarders hovered
around Ford and his haole pupils, for he loves children and
is a great favorite with these. Often, timing our pro-
pelling wave, we would find a brown and smiling cherub
of ten or so, all eyes and teeth, helpfully timing the same
wave, watching with altruistic anxiety lest we fail and tangle
up with the pitching slice of hardwood. Not a word would
he utter but in every gesture was "See! See! This
way! It is easy!"

Several times, on my own vociferous way, I was spilled
diagonally adown the face of a combing wave, the board
whirling as it overturned and slithering up-ended, while I
swam to bottom for my very life, in fear of a smash on the
cranium. And once I got it, coming up wildly, stars
shooting through my brain. And once Jack's board, on
which he had lain too far forward, dived, struck bottom,
and flung him. head over heels in the most ludicrous somer-
sault. His own head was struck in the ensuing mix-up
Jind we were able to compare size and number of stars.
Of course, his stars were the bigger because my power
of speech was not equal to his. It seems to us both that
never were we so wet in all our lives, as during those laugh-
ing, strenuous, half -drowned hours.

Sometimes, just sometimes, when I want to play the game
beyond my known vitality, I almost wish I were a boy.
] do my best, as to-day ; but when it comes to piloting an
enormous weighty plank out where the high surf smokes,
above a depth of twelve to fifteen feet, I fear that no vigor
of spirit can lend my scant five-feet-two, short hundred-
and-eleven, the needful endurance. Mr. Ford pooh-poohs :
' Yes, you can. It's easier than you think but better
let your husband try it out first."

Page 76
<...>
WAIKIKI, Sunday, June 2, 1907.

An eventful day, this, especially for Jack, who is in bed
thinking it over between groans, eyes puffed shut with a
strange malady, and agonizing in a severe case of sunburn.
I can sympathize to some extent, for, in addition to a
considerable roasting, my whole body is racked with mus-
cular quirkings and lameness from the natatorial gym- ...

Page 77

nasties of the past forty-eight hours. Our program to-
day began at ten, with a delirious hour of canoe riding
in a pounding surf. While less individual boldness is
called upon, this game is even more exciting than surf-
boarding, for more can take part in the shoreward rush.

The great canoes are themselves the very embodiment
of royal barbaric sea spirit dug whole out of hard koa
logs, long, narrow, over two feet deep, with very slightly
curved perpendicular sides and rounded bottoms ; furnished
with steadying outriggers on the left, known as the "i-a-ku"
- two long curved timbers, of the light tough hardwood,
with their outer ends fastened to the heavy horizontal
spar, or float, of wili-wili, called the "a-ma." The hulls
are painted dull, dead black, and trimmed by a slightly
in-set, royal-yellow inch-rail, broadening upward at each
end of the boat, with a sharp tip. There is an elegance
of savage warlikeness about these long sable shapes ; but
the sole warfare in this day and age is with Neptune, when,
manned by shining bronze crews, they breast or fight
1 hrough the oncoming legions of rearing, trampling, neigh-
ing sea cavalry.

It required several men on a side to launch our forty-
foot canoe across sand into the shoring tide, and altogether
eight embarked, vaulting aboard as she took the water,
each into a seat only just wide enough. Jack wielded a
paddle, but I was placed in the very bow, where, both out
and back, the sharpest thrills are to be had. As the canoe
worked seaward in the high breaking flood, more than
once breath was knocked out of me when the bow lunged
right into a stiff wall of green water just beginning to crest.
Again, the canoe poised horizontally, at right angles to the
springing knife-edge of a tall wave on the imminence of
overcurling, and then, forward-half in midair, plunged
head-into the oily abyss, with a prodigious slap that bounced
us into space, deafened with the grind of the shore-going
leviathan at our backs. I could hear Jack laughing in the
 
 

78 OUR HAWAII

abating tumult of sound, as he watched me trimming my
lines so as to present the least possible surface to the next
briny onslaught. He knew, despite my desperate clutches
at the canary streak on either hand, and my uncontrolled
noise, that I was having the time of my life, as, from his
own past experience, he had told me I would have.

It was more than usually rough, so that our brown crew
would not venture out as far as we had hoped, shaking their
curly heads like serious children at the big white water
on the barrier reef. Then they selected a likely wave for
the slide beachward, shouting strange cries to one another
that brought about the turning of the stern seaward to a
low green mounting hill that looked half a mile long and
ridged higher and higher to the burst.

"'A hill, a gentle hill, Green and of mild declivity.'
. . . It is not!" Fred Church quoted and commented
on his Byron and the threatening young mountain, with
firm hands grasping his paddle, when, at exactly the right
instant, he joined the frantic shrill ' ' Hoe ! Hoe ! ' ' (Paddle !
paddle like everything!) that sent all paddles madly
flying to maintain an equal speed with the abrupt, emerald
slope. Almost on end, wiki-wiki, faster faster, and yet
faster, we shot, over the curl of white water behind, above,
overhanging, menacing any laggard crew. Once I dared
to look back. Head above head I glimpsed them all ; but
never can fade the picture of the last of all, a magnifi-
cent Hawaiian sitting stark in the stern, hardly breathing,
curls straight back in the wind, his biceps bulging to the
weight of canoe and water against the steering paddle, his
wide brown eyes reflecting all the responsibility of bring-
ing right-side-up to shore his haole freight.

And then the stern settles a little at a time, as the for-
midable seething bulk of water dissipates upon the gentle
up-slope of the land before the Moana, while dripping
crew and passengers swing around in the backwash and
work out to repeat the maneuver.
 
 

OUR HAWAII 79

Few other canoes were tempted into the surf to-day,
but we saw one capsize by coasting crookedly down a wave.
The yellow outrigger rose in air, then disappeared in
crashing white chaos. Everything emerged on the sleek
back of the comber, but the men were unable in the en-
suing rough water to right the swamped boat. We lost
sight of them as the next breaker set us zipping inshore,
but on subsequent trips saw them swimming slowly in,
towing the canoe bottom-upward, like a black dead sea
monster, and apparently making a picnic of their disaster.

An hour of this tense and tingling recreation left us sur-
prisingly tired, as well as cold from the strong breeze on
wet suits and skins. Mr. Ford, with a paternal "I-told-
3 r ou-so" smile at our enthusiasm over the canoeing, was
prompt for the next event on our program, which was a
further lesson in surf -boarding. After assisting me for a
time, I noticed he and Jack were sending desireful glances
toward the leaping backs of Pharaoh's Horses, and I knew
they wanted to be quit of the pony breakers inshore the
wahine surf, as the native swimmers have it, and manful-
wise ride the big water. Our friend had a thorough pupil
in Jack, who with characteristic abandon never touched
foot to bottom in four broiling hours.

WAIKIKI, Tuesday, June 25, 1907.
Page 104

<...>
Here at the Beach life is so gay there is hardly chance
to sleep and work, what with arrivals of transports and
their ensuing dinners and dances in the hotel lanai, swim-
ming and surf -boarding under sun and moon very cir-
cumspectly under the sun! One fine day we essayed to
ride the breakers in a Canadian canoe, and capsized in a
wild smother exactly as we had been warned. I stayed under
water such a time that Jack, alarmed, came hunting for
me ; but I was safe beneath the overturned canoe, which
I was holding from bumping my head. He was so relieved
to find me unhurt and capable of staying submerged so
long that promptly he read me a lecture upon swimming as
fast as possible from a capsized boat, to avoid being struck
in event of succeeding rollers flinging it about.

Page 105

WAIKIKI, Friday, June 28, 1907.

To Mr. Ford we owe a new debt of gratitude. And so
does Hawaii, for such another promoter never existed.
All he does is for Hawaii, desiring nothing for himself ex-
cept the feverish, unremitting pleasure of sharing the
attractions of his adopted land.

Page 115
Mr. Cleghorn also suggested that he could arrange a pri-
vate audience with Queen Liliuokalani at her residence in
town, if we desired. Which reminds me that Jack holds a ...
 
 

Page 116

... letter of introduction to her from Charles Warren Stoddard,
who knew her in the days of her tempestuous reign. He
and Jack have called each other Dad and Son for years,
although acquainted only by correspondence. But we have
little wish to intrude upon the Queen, for it can be scant
pleasure to her to meet Americans, no matter how sym-
pathetic they may be with her changed state.

KALAUPAPA, Wednesday, July 3, 1907.
<...>
Page 136

Long we rested on the Goodhue lanai to-night, and long
the shadowy leper orchestra serenaded beyond the hibiscus
hedges, while some one recalled a story of Charles Warren
Stoddard's "Joe of Lahaina," in which a Hawaiian boy,
bright companion of other days, crept to the gateway in
the dusk, and there from the dust called to his old friend.
Forever separated, they talked of old times when they had
walked arm in arm, and arms about shoulders, hi Sweet
Lahaina.

Page 177

KALEINALU, MAUI, Tuesday, July 23, 1907.
<...>
And he (London) ceases not to marvel that the shore-
line is not thronged with globe trotters bickering for sand
lots. It is a wonderful watering place for old and young,

Page 178

... with finest of sand for the babies to play in, and exciting
surfing inside protecting reef, for swimmers.

HOLUALOA, Thursday, August 22, 1907.
<...>
Page 207

Winning through the belt of shrubbery, we traversed
a desert of decomposed lava, our path edged pastorally
with wild flowers, among them the tiny dark-blue ones of the
indigo plant. Across and down this stretch undulates the
ruin of the prehistoric holualoa a causeway built fifty
feet wide of irregular lava blocks, flanked either side by
massive, low walls of lava masonry several feet thick.
This amazing slide extends from water's edge two or three
miles up-mountain, and its origin, like the ambitious fish
ponds, is lost in the fogs of antiquity. Its probable use
was for the ancient game of holua coasting on a few-
inches-wide sledge papa holua with runners over a
dozen feet long and several inches deep, fashioned of pol-
ished wood, hard as iron, curving upward in front, and
fastened together by ten or more crosspieces. The rider,
with one hand grasping the sledge near the center, ran a
few yards for headway, then leaped upon it and launched
headforemost downhill. Ordinarily, a smooth track of dry
pili grass was prepared on some long descent that ended in
a plain; but this holua/00 (loa connotes great), is supposed
to have been sacred to high and mighty chief dom, whose
papa holuas were constructed with canoe-bottoms. Picture
a grand chief of chiefs, and his court of magnificent war-
riors, alii, springing gloriously upon their carved and painted
 
 

208 OUR HAWAII

sledges, flashing with ever increasing flight adown this regal
course until, at the crusty edge of the solid world, they
breasted the surf of ocean !

Page 281
Return to Waikiki in 1915

Not a day passed before, in swimming-suits, we walked
dDwn Kalia Road to the Seaside Hotel, and once more
felt underfoot the sands of Waikiki. But such changes
had been wrought by sea and mankind that we could hardly
believe our eyes, and needed a guide to set us right.

The sands, shifting as they do at irregular periods of
storm, had washed away from before the hotel, leaving
an uninviting coral-hummock bottom not to be negotiated
comfortably except at high tide, and generally shunned.
A forbidding sea-wall buttressed up the lawn of the hotel, 1
while the only good beach was the restricted stretch be-
tween where the row of cottages once had begun, and the
Moana Hotel.

And what had we here? In place of those little old
weather-beaten houses and the brown tent, the Outrigger
Canoe Club had established its bathhouses, separate club
lanais for both women and men, and, nearest the water, a
large, raised dancing-lanai, underneath which reposed a fleet
of great canoes, their barbaric yellow prows ranged seaward.
At the rear, in a goodly line of tall lockers, stood the many
surf-boards, fashioned longer and thicker than of yore,
of the members of the Canoe Club.

A steel cable, whiskered with seaweed, anchored midway
of the beach, extended several hundred yards into deeper
water where a steel diving-stage had been erected, and upon
it dozens of swimmers, from merest children to old men,

1 At this writing, 1917, the sands are again level with the seawall, shoal-
ing as far as the diving-stage, rendered useless for lack of deep water.

page 282

were making their curving flights inside the breakers.
Several patronesses of the Club give their time on certain
days of the week, from the women's lanai inconspicuously
chaperoning the Beach.

Actually, the only landmark recognizable was the date-
palm still flourishing where had once been a corner of our
tent-house, now become a sheltering growth with yard-
long clusters of fruit, and we were told it was known as the
"Jack London Palm." For it might be said that in its
shadow Jack wove his first tales of Hawaii.

And all this progress meant Ford ! Ford ! Ford ! Every-
where one turned evidence of his unrelaxing brain met the
eye. But he, in turn, credits Jack with having done incal-
culably much toward bringing the splendid Club into exist-
ence, by his article on surf -board riding, " A Royal Sport."
Largely on the strength of the interest it aroused, Mr. Ford
had been enabled to keep his word to Jack that he would
make surf -boarding one of the most popular pastimes in
Hawaii. Upon his representations the Queen Emma
estate, at a lease of a few dollars a year, to be contributed
to the Queen's Hospital, which her Majesty had estab-
lished, had set aside for the Club's use this acre of ground,
which, with the enthusiastic revival of surf-boarding, was
now become almost priceless.

Queen Emma was the wife of Kamehameha IV, mother
of the beautiful "Prince of Hawaii," who died in child-
hood, herself granddaughter of John Young, and adopted
daughter of an English physician, Dr. Rooke, who had
married her aunt, Kamaikui. The Queen owned this part
of the Beach, from which her own royal canoes were
launched in the good old days, and where she also used
the surf -board.

"Her estate holds this land," Ford had said in 1907,
"and I'm going to secure it for a Canoe Club. I don't
know how; but I'm just going to." And Jack, when
writing "A Royal Sport," was not unmindful of the kokua
 
 

page  283

(assistance) it might possibly prove in bringing about
Ford's ambition for Waikiki. So keen had our friend been
on the trail, that we had half wondered how soon we should
be turned out of our Seaside quarters to make room for
lumber and carpenters !

page 290

Upon the Beach at Waikiki it was seldom we missed
the long afternoon. Jack worked in a kimono as of yore,
his face and figure little changed, if more mature. After
 
 

page 291

luncheon, in bathing suit, bearing towels and a white
dangling bag of blue-figured Japanese crepe, knobby as a
stocking at Christmas time with books and magazines
selected from the boxes regularly shipped from the Ranch
at home, and bountiful cigarettes and matches, he would
be seen walking along Kalia Road with his light and merry
gait to the Outrigger Club. And "I'm glad we're here
r-ow," he would ruminate; "for some day Waikiki Beach
is going to be the scene of one long hotel. And wonderful
as it will be, I can't help clinging, for once, to an old idea."

Under the high lanai of the Outrigger, we lay in the cool
sand between canoes and read aloud, napped, talked, or
visited with the delightful inhabitants of the charmed
strand, until ready to swim in the later afternoon. One
special diversion was to watch several Hawaiian youths,
the unsurpassed Duke Kahanamoku among them, per-
forming athletic stunts in water and out. And that sturdy
little American girl we had known before, Ruth Stacker,
now a famous swimmer herself, could be seen instructing
her pupils in the wahine surf. George Freeth, we heard,
was teaching swimming and surf -boarding in Southern
California. Our own swims became longer from day to
day. Still inside the barrier reef, through the breakers
we would work, emerging with back-flung hair on their
climbing backs while they roared shoreward. Beyond the
combing crests, in deeper water above the coral that we
could see gleaming underfoot in the sunshafts, lazily we
would tread the bubbling brine or lie floating restfully,
almost ethereally, on the heaving warm surface, convers-
ing sometimes most solemnly in the isolated space between
sky and solid earth.

Page 291

Touched and gratified, I reminded him of the afternoon
that first I swam to the Snark in Pearl Lochs ; and more
than many times, swimming free in the breakers at Waikiki,
hailing with shout and wave of hand the surfing canoes
and boards flashing and zipping to every side, we referred
to those days when the farthest we swam together was an
eighth of a mile Jack held back because I could do no
more.
 
 

OUR HAWAII 293

Deep thinker though he was, and worshipful of the
brain-stuff of others, he ever found shining things of the
spirit in courageous physical endeavor. I think, in a dozen
close years with him, year in and year out, "in sickness
and in health," till death did us part, that never have I
seen him more elated, more uplifted with delight over feat
of one dear to him, than upon one April day at Waikiki.

An out-and-out Kona gale had piled up a big, quick-
iollowing surf, threshing milk-white and ominous under a
leaden, low-hanging sky. At the Outrigger beach no soul
was visible ; but a group of young sea-gods belonging to the
Club sat with bare feet outstretched on the railing of the
lanai above the canoes. Joining them, Jack inquired if they
were "going out." Young Lorrin Thurston tossed back his
sun-bleached mop of gold hair from his golden-brown eyes
and looked at the others quizzically. "Nothing doing,"
one laughed. And another, "This is no day for surf-
boards and a canoe couldn't live in that water." "But
we are going to swim out," Jack said. "You'd better not,
Mr. London," the boys frowned respectfully. "You
couldn't take a woman into that surf." "You watch me,"
Jack returned. "I could, and shall."

We went. Now, understand. It was not in order to
be spectacular that Jack took me out that day. This
was not bravado. With the several weeks' training he
had given me in sizable breakers, he expected as a matter
of course to see me put that training to use. And I felt as
one with him. The thing was, first, to get beyond the
diving-stage, for a big freshet had brought down the little
river a tangled mass of thorned algaroba and other prickly
vegetation, which, with a wild wrack of seaweed, made the
sliallow water almost impassable.

Very slowly we forged out, and at length were in position
\vhere the marching seas were forming and overtoppling.
Rather stupendous they loomed to small me, I will confess ;
but, remembering other and smaller ones and obeying
 
 

294 OUR HAWAII

scrupulously Jack's quiet "Don't get straight up and
down straighten out keep flat, keep flat!" I managed
not badly to breast and pass through a dozen or more that
followed fast and faster, almost too fast for me to get breath
between whiles.

But when I finally ventured "I think I have had enough,"
immediately Jack slanted our course channelward where
the tide flows out toward the reef egress. Once in this
smoother water it was plain sailing, so to speak, except
that after half an hour we found we were not getting any-
where worse than that, drifting willy nilly out to sea.
By now, the young crews of the Outrigger had followed
with their boards, fearing we might come to grief, and upon
Lorrin's advice we made back toward the breakers and
out of the current, and "came in strong" with our best
strokes to the Beach.

Again, one less stormy day, in deep water Jack was seized
with a cramp in his foot, from which often he suffered at
night a painful and increasing symptom of break down
in his ankles, accompanied as it was by rheumatism in both
wrists and ankles. Between us, he floating, I treading,
we rubbed and kneaded the foot as best we could, until a
strange surf-boarder hove in sight, fighting seaward, whom
I hailed at Jack's suggestion through set teeth. We got
Jack on the board, and went more thoroughly at the
ironing-out of the cramp with our palms, and presently he
was able to swim ashore.

There was nothing whatever remarkable in these two
incidents. Having learned to put implicit faith in Jack's
judgment, which I had never had reason to doubt, I merely
followed his directions and knew that he would give instant
heed, in the first instance, when I claimed weariness.
But that a small, sensitive female of the species should
follow him in water where experienced members of the
Outrigger hesitated to go, and that she should not lose her
head in his disablement, from his angle surpassed intellec-
 
 

ftt
 
 
 

(i ' Kahilis at Funeral of Prince David Kawananakoa. (2) Kamehameha the Great.
(3) and (4) Sport of Kings.
 
 

OUR HAWAII 295

tual achievement, because it called for spiritual courage.
"I'd rather see my woman be able to do what she did,
than to have her write the greatest book ever published
or unpublished/' tersely summed up his philosophy of
values.

Page 295
Touched and gratified, I reminded him of the afternoon
that first I swam to the Snark in Pearl Lochs ; and more
than many times, swimming free in the breakers at Waikiki,
hailing with shout and wave of hand the surfing canoes
and boards flashing and zipping to every side, we referred
to those days when the farthest we swam together was an
eighth of a mile Jack held back because I could do no
more.
 
 

OUR HAWAII 293

Deep thinker though he was, and worshipful of the
brain-stuff of others, he ever found shining things of the
spirit in courageous physical endeavor. I think, in a dozen
close years with him, year in and year out, "in sickness
and in health," till death did us part, that never have I
seen him more elated, more uplifted with delight over feat
of one dear to him, than upon one April day at Waikiki.

An out-and-out Kona gale had piled up a big, quick-
iollowing surf, threshing milk-white and ominous under a
leaden, low-hanging sky. At the Outrigger beach no soul
was visible ; but a group of young sea-gods belonging to the
Club sat with bare feet outstretched on the railing of the
lanai above the canoes. Joining them, Jack inquired if they
were "going out." Young Lorrin Thurston tossed back his
sun-bleached mop of gold hair from his golden-brown eyes
and looked at the others quizzically. "Nothing doing,"
one laughed. And another, "This is no day for surf-
boards and a canoe couldn't live in that water." "But
we are going to swim out," Jack said. "You'd better not,
Mr. London," the boys frowned respectfully. "You
couldn't take a woman into that surf." "You watch me,"
Jack returned. "I could, and shall."

We went. Now, understand. It was not in order to
be spectacular that Jack took me out that day. This
was not bravado. With the several weeks' training he
had given me in sizable breakers, he expected as a matter
of course to see me put that training to use. And I felt as
one with him. The thing was, first, to get beyond the
diving-stage, for a big freshet had brought down the little
river a tangled mass of thorned algaroba and other prickly
vegetation, which, with a wild wrack of seaweed, made the
sliallow water almost impassable.

Very slowly we forged out, and at length were in position
\vhere the marching seas were forming and overtoppling.
Rather stupendous they loomed to small me, I will confess ;
but, remembering other and smaller ones and obeying
 
 

294 OUR HAWAII

scrupulously Jack's quiet "Don't get straight up and
down straighten out keep flat, keep flat!" I managed
not badly to breast and pass through a dozen or more that
followed fast and faster, almost too fast for me to get breath
between whiles.

But when I finally ventured "I think I have had enough,"
immediately Jack slanted our course channelward where
the tide flows out toward the reef egress. Once in this
smoother water it was plain sailing, so to speak, except
that after half an hour we found we were not getting any-
where worse than that, drifting willy nilly out to sea.
By now, the young crews of the Outrigger had followed
with their boards, fearing we might come to grief, and upon
Lorrin's advice we made back toward the breakers and
out of the current, and "came in strong" with our best
strokes to the Beach.

Again, one less stormy day, in deep water Jack was seized
with a cramp in his foot, from which often he suffered at
night a painful and increasing symptom of break down
in his ankles, accompanied as it was by rheumatism in both
wrists and ankles. Between us, he floating, I treading,
we rubbed and kneaded the foot as best we could, until a
strange surf-boarder hove in sight, fighting seaward, whom
I hailed at Jack's suggestion through set teeth. We got
Jack on the board, and went more thoroughly at the
ironing-out of the cramp with our palms, and presently he
was able to swim ashore.

There was nothing whatever remarkable in these two
incidents. Having learned to put implicit faith in Jack's
judgment, which I had never had reason to doubt, I merely
followed his directions and knew that he would give instant
heed, in the first instance, when I claimed weariness.
But that a small, sensitive female of the species should
follow him in water where experienced members of the
Outrigger hesitated to go, and that she should not lose her
head in his disablement, from his angle surpassed intellec-
 
 

ftt
 
 
 

(i ' Kahilis at Funeral of Prince David Kawananakoa. (2) Kamehameha the Great.
(3) and (4) Sport of Kings.
 
 

OUR HAWAII 295

tual achievement, because it called for spiritual courage.
"I'd rather see my woman be able to do what she did,
than to have her write the greatest book ever published
or unpublished/' tersely summed up his philosophy of
values.

<...>
The newest brood of surf -boarders had learned and put
into practice angles never dreamed of a decade earlier.
Now, instead of always coasting at right-angles to the wave,
young Lorrin and the half-dozen who shared with him the
reputation of being the most skilled would often be seen
erect on boards that their feet and balance guided at as-
tonishing slants. Surf -boar ding had indeed come into its
own. And the sport never seems to pall. Its devotees,
as long as boards and surf are accessible, show up every
afternoon of their lives on the Beach at Waikiki. When a
youth must depart for eastern college-life, his keenest regret
is for the loss of Waikiki and all it means of godlike con-
quest of the " bull-mouthed breakers.' No athletic-field
dream quite compensates. It remains the king of sports.
 

THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

BEQUEST OF  YNEZ GHIRARDELLI

HISTORY  OF THE HAWAIIAN OR SANDWICH ISLANDS,
EMBRACING THEIK

BY JAMES JACKSON JARVES,
Member of the Am. Oriental Society.

With Maps and Plates.

PUBLISHED BY JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY
134 Washington-Street, Boston.

Chapter 2
Ohau
Waikiki
Page 59

THE village of Waikiki, four miles to the east of
Honolulu, built under a beautiful grove of cocoa-
nut trees, bordering the beach, was the former capi
tal. In it still remain the ruins of a stone house,
once the residence of the conqueror Kamehameha.

Chapter 3
KAUAI.
VALLEY OF HANAPEPE.
page 121

A fine stream runs through the valley,
on either side of which are situated the little planta
tions, and numerous patches of kalo, which afford
sustenance to the inhabitants of this quiet retreat.
Their principal hamlet is clustered under the shade
of the cocoa-nut trees at its mouth. The natives of
all the islands seem very generally to prefer the hot
and barren sea-side, to the cooler and more verdant
situations farther up the valley. This is probably for
the sake of the fisheries, and the sport of sea-bathing,
to which they are passionately addicted ; and a ...

Page 122122 SURF-SWIMMING.

pretty sight it is, to see the youth of both sexes on
their surf-boards, sporting as freely amid the heavy
rollers, as if they knew no other element. At one
time pushing their boards before them as they ad
vance seaward, diving beneath each curling wave,
until they have reached the outer extremity of the
breakers, then throwing themselves flat upon their
support, like a boy upon his snow-sled, they dart
inshore with the rapidity of lightning, upon the
crest of the waves, merrily shouting all the while,
dashing and splashing along, till within a few feet
of the rocks, on which, your breath half held from
fear, you have been momentarily expecting them to
strike, to the risk of life or limb ; but which, by a
dexterous movement of their limbs, they avoid, and
pull out to sea again, or throw themselves from their
board, which is thrown up by the spent wave, almost
at your feet. Formerly, old and young engaged in
this sport, but now it is a rare sight.
 

Page 262

In 1840 the exports from Hilo amounted to two
hundred thousand shingles, a considerable quantity
of Koa lumber, forty or fifty tons of sugar, and one
hundred and fifty tons of arrow root. Seven miles
inland there is a saw-mill, which, when water is
abundant, can saw from six to eight hundred feet of
boards per day.

page 279

On our return passage we passed through the
channel between Maul and Hawaii, notorious for
its heavy squalls, rapid currents, and short, toppling
seas. The beautiful appearance of the lofty moun
tains on either side is some alleviation, however, for
this complication of disagreeables, but my purpose
in alluding to it in this place is to record a feat in
swimming, which, if it were not perfectly well au
thenticated, would seem to be incredible. At Hono
lulu it was a common affair for men and boys to
plunge from the top-gallant yards of large ships, pass
under their bottoms, and reappear on the other side.
I have known them bring up small articles lost over
board in ninety feet of water, and it is asserted of a
woman, who was capsized in a canoe when two
 
 

280 FEATS IN SWIMMING.

miles from shore, that she swam the whole distance
to land with a shark in full pursuit, seeking an
opportunity to make a meal of her ; but the activity
and coolness she displayed proved too much for the
rapacious and cowardly fish. These feats sink into
insignificance compared with the following, which
also serves to show how much at home the natives
are upon the waves, and that there is considerable
truth in the statement often made in regard to them,
namely, that a native may perish from hunger and
exhaustion upon the water, but he will not drown.
The schooner Kiola, a small vessel of thirty-five tons,
left Lahaina for Kawaihae on the ninth of May, 1840.
She was in an unseaworthy condition, having been
ashore, but, with the characteristic recklessness of
Hawaiians, was sent to sea again without being
repaired. From thirty to forty people were on board.
On the afternoon of the subsequent day, they had
arrived to within ten miles of Kahola point, Hawaii ;
Maui was but just visible in the distance. The wind
breezed up strong, and the vessel careened much to
the leeward; the stone ballast rolled over in that
direction, and part of her cargo immediately followed.
Her bows were suddenly thrown under, and, before
she could recover herself, the water rushed into her
hatches, and she filled and went down, carrying
with her a number who were unable to extricate
themselves from her hold. The remainder, at the
summons of Mauae, a pious native, who, during the
morning, (it was Sunday,) had conducted divine
service, assembled as near each other as it was possi
ble, while he implored succor from above. Although

Waikiki
Page 521

It is probable that the ,yhole plain bet,veen
the Pali and the ocean was once an imlnense crater, of thirty or
forty miles circumference, the southern semicircular rim of
which only is now visible, the northern having been destroyed
by unrecognized agencies, and buried in the depths of the sea
that now rolls its surf above the sunken ruins.
In years gone by the whole seashore of Oahu was an unre-
stricted bathing-place, where the guileless islanders sported in
tbe surf, seeking health and vigor fronl the alluring waves.

Hilo
Page 553

A submerged coral reef extends ii-onl Cocoanut Island on
the south, to within half a mile of the north bide of the bay,
leaving a passage of that width for vessels of the greatest
draught; and there is within the reef a harbor of one and a
quarter by two miles in extent, in which ships of any size may
ride at anchor in perfect security. On the west side of this
harbor stands the to,vn of Illl{), and on the south the little vil-
lage of Waiakea, a crescentic beach bordering and lying between
them, on which the breaking surf looks in the distance like a
fringe of frosted silver.