| In one place we came upon a large company
of naked natives, of both sexes and all ages, amusing themselves with the
national pastime of surf- bathing. Each heathen would paddle three or four
hundred yards out to sea (taking a short board with him), then face the
shore and wait for a particularly prodigious billow to come along; at the
right moment he would fling his board upon its foamy crest and himself upon
the board, and here he would come whizzing by like a bombshell! It did not
seem that a lightning express-train could shoot along at a more hair-lifting
speed. I tried surf-bathing once, subsequently, but made a failure of it.
I got the board placed right, and at the right moment, too; but missed the
connection myself. The board struck the shore in three-quarters of a second,
without any cargo, and I struck the bottom about the same time, with a couple
of barrels of water in me. None but natives ever master the art of surf-bathing
thoroughly. - Roughing It |
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