A NOBLE SEA GAME.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVIII, Issue 11367, 7 September 1897, Page 2

A NOBLE SEA GAME.

[By Louis Becke.] Just as my wild-eyed, touzle-headed Gilbert Island cook brought me my early coffee and hard ship-biscuit, Toria and Vailole, brown-skinned brother and sister peeped in through the window, and in their curious bastard Samoan said ’twas a glorious morn to fahah eke. Now I had learned to fahaheke (use a surf-board), having been instructed therein by the youths and maidens of the village individually and collectively. And when you have once learned surf-swimming the game takes possession of your innermost soul like unto cycling and golf. So I said I would come, and instantly my young friends handed me in a surfing costume, a highly indecorous looking girdle of thin strippings of the leaf of the pandanus palm. This I blushingly declined, preferring a garment of my own design —a pair of dungaree pants razeed from the knees down. Then, bidding me hurry up and meet the swimming party on the beach, Toria and his sister ran back to the village to attend early morning service, to which the wooden cylinder that did duty for a church-bell was already summoning the people. Now, in some of the Pacific islands surfswimming is one of tho forbidden things, for many of the native teachers hold the sport to savour of the po idi — i.e., the heathen days—and the young folks can only indulge in the innocent ' diversion away from tho watchful eye of the local Chadband and his alert myrmidons, tho village police, among whom all fines are divided. But in this particular little island we had for our resident missionary a young, stalwart Samoan, who did not forbid bis flock to dance or sing, or prohibit the young girls from wearing flowers in their dark locks. And he himself was a mighty fisherman and a great diver and swimmer, and smoked his pipe and laughed and sang with the people out of the fulness of his heart when they were merry, aud prayed for and consoled them in their sorrow. So we all loved loane, the teacher, and Eline, his pretty young wife, aud his two jolly little muddy-brown infants—for there was

NO OTHER NATIVE MISSIONARY LIKE HIM IN ALL THE AVIDE PACIFIC.

The simple service was soon over, and then there was a great scurrying to and fro among the thatched houses, and presently in t’vvos and threes the young people appeared, hurrying down to the beach and shouting loudly to the white man to follow. A strong breeze had sprung up during the night, and the long rolling billows, which had sped Avaveringly along for, perhaps, a thousand miles from beyond the Western

sea-rim, were sweeping now in quick succession over the Avide flat stretch of reef that stood out from tho northern end of the island like a huge table. Two hundred yards in width from the steep-to face it presented to the sea it ceased, almost as abruptly as it began, in a bed of pure white sand, six feet below the surface of the water; and this sandy bottom continued all the Avay from the inner edge of the reef to the line of coco-palms fringing the island beach. At low tide, when the ever-restless rollers dashed vainly against the sea face of the reef, Avhose surface was then bared and shining in the sun, this long strip of sheltered Avater Avouid lay quiet and undisturbed as clear as crystal and as smooth as a sheet of glass; but as the tide rose the Avavescame sweeping over the coral harrier, and poured noisily over its inner ledge till the lagoon again became as SURE-SWEPT AND AGITATED ’ as the sea beyond. This was the favoured spot for surf-swimming with the people; for when the tide was full the surf broke heavily on the reef, and there was a clear run of half a mile from the starting point on the inner face of the coral table to the soft Avhite beach. Besides that there was not a single rock or mound of coral betAveen the reef and the shore upon which a SAvimmer might strike with fatal effect if the danger were not perceived in time. The north point Avas quite a mile from the village, and, the tide being very high, we had to follow a path through the coco-nut groves instead of walking along the beach, for the swirling waves, although well spent when they reached the shore, were Avashing the butts of tho coco-palms, whose matted roots protruded from the sand at high water mark. In front of us raced some scores of young children ranging from ten years of age to six, pushing and jostling each other in their eagerness to be first on the scene. Although the sun Avas hot already, the breeze was cool and bIeAV strongly in our . faces when wo emerged from the narrow leafy track out upon the open strand. Then with much shouting and laughing, and playful thumping of brown backs and shoulders, Timi, the master of ceremonies for the occasion, .marshalled us all in" line, and then gave the word to go ; and Avith a tremendous row, in which

SHRILL FEMININE SQUEAKS PREDOMINATED,

away Ave sprang into the sea, each one pushing his or her surf-board in front, or shooting it out ahead, and trying to reach the reef before any one else. And now the slight regard for the conventionalities that had been maintained during the walk from the village vanished, and the fun began—ducking and other aquatic horseplay, hairpulling, seizing of surf-boards and throiving them back shoreAvards, and wrestling matches between the foremost swimmers. The “ Avhite man,” swimming between the boy Toria and a short, square-built, blackbearded native named Temana, had succeeded in keeping well in the van, when he Avas suddenly seized by the feet by tAvo little imps, just as a sweeping roller lifted him high up. And down the Avhite man rvent, and away went his surf-board shoreAvard amid the shrieking laughs of the girls. “ Never mind,” shouted Temana, shaking his black curly head like a water-spaniel; and seizing a board from a girl near him, and pushing her under at the same time, ho shot it over towards me; and then Toria, with a wrathful exclamation, caught one of the imps who had caused my disaster, and, twining his left hand in her long, floating hair, pitched her board away behind him. This little incident, hoAvever, lost us our places, and amid THE MERRY GIBES OF SOME NAKED INFANTS who were in the ruck, we sivam on in the face of the slapping seas, and at last gained the edge of the reef, Avhich was now alive Avith nude, brmvn-skinned ■ figures, trying to keep their positions in the boiling surf for the first grand “ shoot ” shoreward. Between the lulls of the frequent seas, tho Avater Avas only about four feet deep, and presently some sort of order was formed, and we aAvaited the next big roller. Over the outer reef it reared its greeny crest, curled and broke with thundering clamour, and roared its mile-line length toAvards us. Struggling hard to keep our feet on the slippery coral against the swift backwash, we Avait till the white Avail of hissing foam is five feet away, and then fling ourselves forward fiat upon our boards. Oh, how can one describe the ecstatic feeling that folloAVS as your feet go up and your head and shoulders down, and you seem to fly through the water Avith the spume and froth of the mighty roller playing about your hair and hissing and singing in your ears ? Half a mile away lies the beach, hut you cannot see it, only the plumed ci’OAvns of the palms swaying to aud fro in the breeze; for your head is low down, and there is nothing visible but a Avavering line of shaking green. Perhaps, if you are adept enough to turn your head ’.to right or left, you will see silhouetted against the snowy wall of foam scores and scores of black heads, and then almost ere you can draAv your breath from excitement the beach is before you, and you slip off your board ere the wave that has carried you so gloriously in sweeps far up on the shore, amid the vines and creepers which emvrap the sea-laved roots of the coco-palms. Then back again, up and down over the seas, diving beneath any that are too high and SAvift to withstand, till you reach the ledge of the reef again and Avait another chance. Not all together do we go this time, for now tho Swimmers are Avidely separated, and as Ave swim out wo meet others coming back, flying before the rollers under Avhich avc have to dive. Here and there are those avlio disdain from long practice and skill to use a board; for springing in front of a curling sea, by

A CURIOUS TRICK of hollowing in the back and depressing the head and neck, they fly in before the rolling surge at an amazing speed, beating the Avater with one hand as they go, and uttering Avild cries of triumph as they pass us struggling outward. Others there are Avho, with both hands held together before them, keep themselves vvell in position amid the boiling rush of Avaters by a movement of the legs and feet alone. But to my mind, some of the girls looked prettiest of all when, instead of lying prone, they sat upon their hoards, and held themselves in position by grasping the sides. Twice, as wo SAvam out, did Ave see from tAventy to thirty of them mounted slopingly on the face of a curling sea, and Avith their long, dark locks trailing behind them, rush shoreward enveloped in mist and spray like goddesses of the Avaves. Their shrill cries of encouragement to each other, the loud thunder of the surf as it broke upon its coral barrier, THE SEETHING HUM AND HISS OF THE ROLLER as it impelled them to the beach, and the merry shrieks of laughter that ensued when some luckless girl overbalanced or misguided herself in the midst of the foam, lent a zest of enjoyment to the scene that made one feel himself a child again. For two hours we swam out again and again to fly-shoreward; and at last we met together on the beach, to rest under the shade of the palms, the girls to smoke their banana-leaf sului of strong negro-head tobacco, and the men their pipes, Avhile the younger boys Av-ere sent to gather us young drinking coconuts. And then we heard a sudden cry of mingled laughter and astonishment; for, tottering along the path,

surf-board under arm, came an old man of ■ seventy, nude to his loins. “Hu! hu!” he cried, and his wrinkle face twisted, and his toothless mouth quivered, “ is old Pakia so blind and weak that he cannot fahahelce? Ah, let but some of ye guide me out and set me before the surf—then shall ye see."

Poor old fellow! Like an old troophorse who dozes in afield, and whose blood tingles to some distant bugle call, the ancient, from his little hut near by, had heard our cries, and his brave old heart had AWAKENED 'X'O THE CALL OF LUSTY YOUTH. And so, earnestly begging the loan of a board from one of the swimmers, he had come to join us. And then two merryhearted girls, taking him to the water’s edge, swam out with him to the reef amid our wild cheers and laughter. They soon reached the starting-point, and then a roar of delight went up .from us as we saw them place the ancient on his board, his knees to his chin, and his hands grasping the aides. Then as a bursting roller thundered along and swept down upon them, they gave him a shove and sprang before it themselves—one on each side. And. old and half blind as he was, he came in like an arrow from the bow of a mighty archer, his scanty white locks trailing behind his poor old head like the frayed-out end of a manilla hawser, his face set and his feeble old throat crowing a quavering shaking note of triumph as he shot up to the very margin of the beach, amid a roar of applause from the naked and admiring spectators.

Poor old Pakia! Well, indeed, art thou entitled to this stick of tobacco from the white man to console thy cheery and venerable old soul in the watches of the night.