Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/56

32 water for which the islanders are famous, though less so at present than in the days that are gone. Fred thus described it:

"Each man had a surf-board, which was a thick plank twelve or fifteen feet long and perhaps thirty inches wide, and said to be madefrom the trunk of a bread-fruit tree. There were five or six of the natives to whom we had promised half a dollar each for the performance. They pushed out with their planks to the first line of breakers and managed to dip under it and swim along by the help of the under-tow. They passed the second line in the same way, and finally got beyond the entire stretch of surf into comparatively smooth water.

"Then they tossed up and down for a while, waiting for their chance. What they wanted was an unusually high swell, and they tried to find a place in front of it so that it would sweep them towards the shore just where it broke into a comber. They tried several times but failed, and we began to get out of patience.

"At last they got what they had waited for, while some were kneeling on their planks and others lying extended with their faces