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John Burroughs : Surf Riding at Waikiki, 1912.
Extracts from
Burroughs, John:
Time and Change.
Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston,
1912.
Published October 1912.
Internet Archive
http://archive.org/details/timechange00burr
Introduction.
John Burroughs'
(1837-1921) principle interest is in geology, which he pursues
and records during a world tour.
At Waikiki he
enjoys riding in an outrigger canoe and makes an attempt at
surfboard riding.
Also note:
Burroughs,
John: Holiday In Hawaii: Nature In A
Pacific Paradise
Century Magazine,
The Century Company, New York, Volume LXXXIV, No. 4, August,
1912.
A 16 page article, illustrated with 11
photographs, including a group of native boys ready to dive for
coins in Honolulu Harbour and a native indulging in the sport of
surfing or surf-riding, [R. W. Rice and A. W. Perkins: Surf Riding,
1904].
Biography
"John Burroughs
(April 3, 1837 – March 29, 1921) was an American naturalist
and essayist important in the evolution of the U.S.
conservation movement.
According to
biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of
Congress,[citation needed] John Burroughs was the most
important practitioner after Henry David Thoreau of that
especially American literary genre, the nature essay.
- en.wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burroughs
Page 119
HOLIDAYS IN HAWAII
...
Page 122
On shore we
were greeted with the music of the Royal Hawaiian Band, and a
motley crowd of Hawaiians, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, and
Americans, bearing colored lies, or wreaths of flowers, which
they waved at friends on board, and with which they bedecked
them as soon as they came off the gangplank.
It was a Babel
of tongues in which the strange, vowel-choked language of the
Hawaiians was conspicuous.
Page 123
I had gone to
Honolulu reluctantly, but tarried there joyfully.
The fine
climate, with its even temperature of about eighty degrees
Fahrenheit, and with all that is enervating or oppressive in
that degree of heat winnowed out of it by the
ceaseless trade winds; the almost unbroken sunshine, perfumed
now and then by a sprinkle of sunlit rain from the mountains;
the wonderful sea laving the shores on the one hand and the
cool, cloud-capped,
and
rain-drenched heights within easy reach on the other; the
green, cozy valleys; the broad sweep of plain; the new,
strange nature on every side; the novel and delicious fruits;
the pepsin-charged papaya, or tree melon, which tickles the
palate while it heals and renews the whole digestive system;
the mangoes (oh, the mangoes!); the cordiality of the people;
the inviting bungalows; the clean streets; the good service
everywhere - all made me feel how mistaken was my reluctance.
Page 130
In climbing
the heights, it was always a surprise to me to see the Pacific
rise up as I rose, till it stood up like a great blue wall
there against the horizon.
A level plain
unrolls in the same way as we mount above it, but it does not
produce the same illusion [page 131] of
rising up like a wall or a mountain-range ; the blue, facile
water cheats the eye.
One of the
novel pleasures in which most travelers indulge while in
Honolulu is surf-riding at Waikiki, near Diamond Head.
The sea, with
a floor of lava and coral, is here shallow for a long distance
out, and the surf comes in at intervals like a line of steeds
cantering over a plain.
We went out in
our bathing-suits in a long, heavy dugout, with a lusty native
oarsman in each end.
When several
hundred yards from shore, we saw, on looking seaward, the
long, shining billows coming, whereupon our oarsmen headed the
canoe toward shore, and plied their paddles with utmost vigor,
uttering simultaneously a curious, excited cry.
In a moment
the breaker caught us and, in some way holding us on its
crest, shot us toward the shore like an arrow.
The sensation
is novel and thrilling.
The foam
flies; the waters leap about you.
You are
coasting on the sea, and you shout with delight and pray for
the sensation to continue.
But it is
quickly over.
The hurrying
breaker slips from under you, and leaves you in the trough,
while it goes foaming on the shore.
Then you turn
about and row out from the shore again, and wait for another
chance to be shot toward the land on the foaming crest of a
great Pacific wave.
I suppose the
trick is in the skill of the oarsmen in holding the boat on
the pitch of the billow so that in its rush it takes you with
it. The native [page 132] boys do
the feat standing on a plank.
I was tempted
to try this myself, but of course made a comical failure.
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Geoff Cater (2012-2016) :
John Burroughs : Surf Riding at Waikiki, 1912.
http://www.surfresearch.com.au/1912_Burroughs_Time_Change.html
