Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kāneʻohe Pineapple

Sugarcane was introduced to Koʻolaupoko in 1865, when the Kingdom’s minister of finance and foreign affairs, Charles Coffin Harris, partnered with Queen Kalama to begin an operation known as the Kāneʻohe Sugar Company.  (History of Koʻolaupoko)

By 1865, four plantations were in production, at Kualoa, Kaʻalaea, Waiheʻe and Kāneʻohe, and in the early 1880s, four more at Heʻeia, Kāneʻohe, Kahaluʻu and Ahuimanu, with a total of over 1,000-acres in cultivation in 1880.  (Coles)

After almost four decades of a thriving sugar industry in Koʻolaupoko, the tide eventually turned bad and saw the closures of all five sugar plantations by 1903. The closures were due to poor soil, uneven lands and the start-up of sugar plantations in ʻEwa, which were seeing much higher yields.

As sugar was on its way out in Koʻolaupoko, rice crops began to emerge as the next thriving industry.  (History of Koʻolaupoko)  In 1880 the first Chinese rice company started in the nearby Waiheʻe area. Abandoned systems of loʻi kalo were modified into rice paddies. The Kāneʻohe Rice Mill was built around 1892-1893 in nearby Waikalua.

By 1880, there were five sugar plantations in Kāneʻohe and a plantation and mill in Heʻeia. In the 1890s, the Heʻeia mill had its own railroad. By 1903 the growing of rice took over the production of sugar which had declined in Koʻolaupoko. Rice was grown in the Heʻeia wetland until the early 1920s. (Camvel)

Pineapples are typically grown in large fairly flat tracts of well-drained inter-mountain land that is composed of what is affectionately termed Hawaiian red dirt (the red color is due to the presence of the oxides of Fe). (Rubin, SOEST)

From 1901 to 1925 lands previously unused for agriculture were being covered up with pineapple fields, especially the hillsides and upslopes.  It was estimated that approximately 2500 acres of land throughout the Ko‘olaupoko region was converted to pineapple cultivation. (History of Koʻolaupoko)

The plantation was established in the windward side of O‘ahu around 1900 by the Hawaiian Development Company and became known as Koolau Fruit Company.

JB Castle and Walter MacFarlane were the key promoters of this early pineapple venture. In 1909, the Hawaiian Cannery Co began operating a small cannery at Kahalu‘u.  And by 1910, Castle was in possession of a thousand acres in Ahuimanu which were suitable for pineapple.

The following year, the Hawaiian Pineapple Co, which James D Dole had founded in 1901, bought out Castle’s Koolau Fruit Co., Ltd and sold it five years later to Libby, McNeil & Libby.

Libby, McNeil & Libby, with control of the Kahalu‘u land, built a large-scale cannery on the site; the cannery had an annual capacity of 250,000-cans.  (Thompson, Kahaluu)

Ten years later, the cannery represented a quarter of a million-dollar investment with a maximum of 750 regular employees, plus an additional 125 at the height of the harvesting season.

The company used a narrow-gauge railway to move the canned fruit to a wharf at the Waikāne Landing, from there sampans took the product to Honolulu for transshipment to other ports. (Conde, Light Railways)

The pineapple cannery along with numerous old-style plantation houses popped up and became known as “Libbyville” (named after its owners, Libby, McNeill, and Libby). (St John’s by the Sea now occupies the site.)

At its peak, 2,500 acres were under pineapple cultivation on Windward O‘ahu, and of this a large percentage was in the Kāne‘ohe Bay region.

The change in landscape to the Windward side by 1914 is reflected in the following sentences: “At last we reached the foot of the Pali … Joe and I looked over the surrounding hills, but looked in vain for the great areas of guava through which but a few months ago we had fought and cut our way.”

“As far as the eye could reach pineapple plantations had taken the place of the forest of wild guava.” (Cultural Surveys)  Libby’s pineapple covered the southern portion of Kāneʻohe, what is now the Pali Golf Course, Hawaiian Memorial Park and the surrounding area.

While Libby managed the operation of large tracts of land, it was noted that, “… much of the pineapple production was carried out by individual growers on small areas of five to 10 acres.”

“A man, a mule, a huli plow and a hoe provided most of the power and the equipment for these smaller operations. This was the typical pineapple production pattern in the area of Waikāne, Waiāhole, Kahaluʻu and ‘Ahuimanu.”

By 1923, it was evident that pineapple cultivation on the Windward area could not keep up with that in other O‘ahu areas. Crops on the Windward side were not yielding tonnages as compared with the Leeward side, fields were smaller, with wilt more prevalent, and growing costs considerably higher. Plantings were therefore reduced.

By this time, the condition of the Pali Road had been improved, and trucks with solid tires were available, so that the struggling pineapple operation found it more economical to haul the fresh pineapple to a central Libby Cannery in Honolulu.

The relatively inefficient, high production costs of operating many small, scattered fields resulted in a decision to discontinue pineapple growing on the Windward side.

The result was the closure of the cannery in 1923.   After the closure of the cannery, the pineapple fields were left to grow over and was then converted to grazing pasture land for cattle.  (History of Koʻolaupoko)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

John Adams Cummins

John Adams Kuakini Cummins was born March 17, 1835 in Honolulu. He was a namesake of island governor John Adams Kuakini (1789–1844), who had taken the name of John Quincy Adams when Americans first settled on the islands in the 1820s.

His father was Thomas Jefferson Cummins (1802–1885) who was born in Lincoln, England, raised in Massachusetts and came to the Hawaiian Islands in 1828. His mother was High Chiefess Kaumakaokane Papaliʻaiʻaina (1810–1849) who was a distant relative of the royal family of Hawaiʻi.

In the 1840s, his father first developed a cattle ranch and horse ranch. Facing diminishing returns in the cattle market, in the 1880s, John began to grow sugar cane in place of cattle. This plantation was known as the Waimanalo Sugar Company.

He married Rebecca Kahalewai (1830–1902) in 1861, also considered a high chiefess, and had five children with her, four daughters and one son.

Cummins was elected to the House of Representatives in the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1874. King Kalākaua appointed him to the Privy Council on June 18, 1874 shortly after Kalākaua came to the throne.

Even though Cummins voted against former Queen Emma in the election, she asked him to manage a trek for her around the islands in November 1875.

He had staged a similar grand tour the year before for Kalākaua. Emma was not disappointed.

Although many ancient Hawaiian customs had faded (due to influence of conservative Christian missionaries, for example), Cummins staged great revivals of ceremonies such as traditional hula performance.

In the legislature he advocated for the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 with the United States, which helped increase profits in the sugar industry, and his fortunes grew.

The sugar industry became a huge success and gave way to other innovations in the area. For instance, the use of railway tracks and locomotive were due to the boom of the sugar business.

Cummins left the sugar business to William G Irwin, agent of Claus Spreckles, and developed a commercial building called the Cummins Block at Fort and Merchant streets in Downtown Honolulu.

In 1889, he represented Hawaiʻi at the Paris exposition known as Exposition Universelle. On June 17, 1890 Cummins became Minister of Foreign Affairs in Kalākaua’s cabinet and thus was in the House of Nobles of the legislature for the 1890 session.

When Kalākaua died and Queen Liliʻuokalani came to the throne in early 1891, she replaced all her ministers. Cummins resigned February 25, 1891.  He was replaced by Samuel Parker who was another part-Hawaiian.

Cummins was elected to the 1892 session of the House of Nobles, on the Hawaiian National Reform Party ticket. He also organized a group called the Native Sons of Hawaii which supported the monarchy.

After the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi in early 1893, Liliʻuokalani asked Cummins to travel to the continent to lobby for its help in restoration of the monarchy.

The task, which included Parker and Hermann A Widemann, ended in failure. However, on the voyage to the west coast, William T Seward, a former Major in the American Civil War who worked for Cummins and lived in one of his homes, smuggled guns and ammunition for the failed 1895 counter-revolution.

Thomas Beresford Walker, Cummins’ son-in-law (married to his eldest daughter Matilda,) was also implicated in the plot. Cummins was arrested, charged with treason and convicted. He was sentenced to prison, but released after paying a fine and agreeing to testify against the ones actively involved in the arms trading.

He died on March 21, 1913 from influenza after a series of strokes and was buried in Oʻahu Cemetery. Well liked, even his political opponents called him “the playmate of princes and the companion and entertainer of kings”.  The territorial legislature had tried several times to refund his fine, but it was never approved by the governor.

His funeral was a mix of mostly traditional symbols of the Hawaiian religion, with a Christian service in the Hawaiian language, attended by both royalists and planners of the overthrow.

Cummin’s great-grandson (through his daughter Jane Piikea Merseberg) was Mayor Neal Blaisdell.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kimo Ona-Milliona

James was son of William and Martha (Adams) Campbell, descended from the Scottish Campbell clan, the eighth child in the family of eight boys and four girls (born in Ireland, February 4, 1826.)  His father was a carpenter who operated a furniture and cabinet shop adjacent to the home where he and his wife raised their family.

With limited opportunities on that island, at the age of 13, he stowed away on a schooner for Canada and later wound up on a whaler out of New Bedford and was bound for the Pacific.  He survived a shipwreck in the South Pacific (Tuamotus) on the way.

He and two shipmates immediately were seized by the Islanders and bound to trees to await their fate.  After Campbell fixed the chief’s broken musket, they were freed and accepted as members of the community. A few months later Campbell left the Island by drifting out to a passing schooner that took him to Tahiti, and later (1850) he went to Hawaiʻi.

He settled in Lāhainā, Maui and honed his skill as a carpenter in building and repairing boats and constructing homes.  He boarded with a European named Barla and married Barla’s only child, Hannah. There were no children of this marriage, which ended with the death of young Hannah Barla Campbell in 1858.

He expanded beyond carpentry and ventured into the Islands’ fledgling sugar industry.  In 1860, Campbell, with Henry Turton and James Dunbar, established the Pioneer Mill Company (Dunbar later left;) they not only invested capital in the business, they also worked alongside employees in the field and mill.

When Campbell and Turton were starting the plantation, the small sugar mill consisted of three wooden rollers set upright, with mules providing the power to turn the heavy rollers. The cane juice ran into a series of boiling kettles that originally had been used on whaling ships.

By 1876, the annual production had increased to 1,708-tons of raw sugar and the World’s Fair in Philadelphia awarded Pioneer Mill a prize for its fine quality sugar that year. In 1882, Honolulu Iron Works built an iron three-roller mill for the factory and soon there were six boilers generating steam power to drive the machinery.

Pioneer Mill Company not only survived but thrived and enabled Campbell to build a palatial home in Lāhainā.  Despite his success in sugar, his interests turned to other matters, primarily ranching and real estate and he started to acquire lands in Oʻahu, Maui and the island of Hawaiʻi.

In 1876, he purchased approximately 15,000-acres at Kahuku on the northernmost tip of Oʻahu from HA Widemann and Julius L Richardson. In 1877, he acquired from John Coney 41,000-acres of ranch land at Honouliuli.

In 1877, he sold his interest in Pioneer Mill Company to his partner, Turton; he married Abigail Kuaihelani Maipinepine (age 19) and soon after moved to a home on Emma Street in Honolulu, which Campbell purchased from Archibald S Cleghorn in 1878.  (Now the site of the Pacific Club.)

Princess Kaʻiulani, daughter of the Cleghorns, was born there in 1875. The Campbells’ first daughter, Abigail Wahiikaahuula, later Princess Abigail Kawānanakoa, was born in the same room as Princess Kaʻiulani. (Other children included Alice, Beatrice and Muriel; four other children were born to the couple but died in infancy.)

In 1883 he built the Campbell Block Building at the corner of Merchant and Fort Streets, Honolulu, where he established his office. (This building was headquarters for the Campbell Estate until 1967, when the Estate constructed the modern James Campbell Building at this site to house its offices.)

In 1885, Pioneer Mill Company, cultivating about 600 of its 900 acres of land and producing about 2,000 tons of sugar a year, encountered difficulties and Turton declared bankruptcy.  To protect his mortgage, Campbell, with financial partner Paul Isenberg of Hackfeld and Company, acquired all the stock and Campbell again took on management of the operation.

With major interests on Maui and Oʻahu, Campbell split his time between the Islands.  He was a member of the House of Nobles representing Maui, Molokai and Lānaʻi in the special session of 1887 and the regular session of 1888.

Back on Oʻahu, critics scoffed at the doubtful value of Campbell’s purchase of Honouliuli. But he envisioned supplying the arid area with water and commissioned California well-driller James Ashley to drill a well on his Honouliuli Ranch.  In 1879, Ashley drilled Hawaiʻi’s first artesian well; Campbell’s vision had made it possible for Hawaiʻi’s people to grow sugar cane on the dry lands of the ʻEwa Plain.

In 1889, Campbell leased about 40,000-acres of land for fifty years to BF Dillingham (of Oʻahu Railway and Land Co;) after several assignments and sub-leases, about 7,860-acres of Campbell land ended up with Ewa Planation.

(ʻEwa Plantation was considered one of the most prosperous plantations in Hawaiʻi and in 1931 a new 50-year lease was executed, completing the agreement with Oʻahu Railway and Land Company and beginning an association with Campbell Estate.  The ʻEwa mill closed in the mid-1970s; the mill was demolished in 1985.)

After a lengthy illness, Campbell died on April 21, 1900, in his Emma Street home. On the afternoon of his funeral the banks and most of the large business houses closed.  (In January of 1902, Abigail Campbell married Colonel Sam Parker.)

“We knew him then as a very capable and industrious mechanic at Lahaina. By hard work and sound judgment, twenty years later he had built up a valuable sugar plantation in Lahaina. From that beginning of wealth he became the possessor of more than three millions of property, all of it, to the best of our knowledge, honestly gained without detriment to others.”

“Mr. Campbell was a good citizen, although not a religious man. He was remarkable for sound business judgment, capacity for hard persistent effort, and for great personal courage, qualities very commonly accompanying Scotch descent.”  (The Friend, May 1, 1900)

When Campbell died, the Estate of James Campbell was created as a private trust to administer his assets for the benefit of his heirs (in 2007, the James Campbell Company succeeded the Estate of James Campbell.) The Estate played a pivotal role in Hawaiʻi history, from the growth of sugar plantations to the growing new City of Kapolei.

Over the years, Campbell became known by the Hawaiians as “Kimo Ona-Milliona” (James the Millionaire.)  Campbell himself said that the principle upon which he had accumulated his wealth was in always living on less than he made.  (Lots of information here from Campbell Estate publications.)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Arrival of the Young Brothers

In 1899, Herbert, William, Jack and Edgar Young were at Catalina Island; the year, before they started taking fishing parties out daily and conducting excursions to the coral gardens.

Some suggest this was the beginning of charter fishing; likewise, this marked the beginning of the famous glass-bottom boat rides which were to prove of such great interest and profit at Catalina.

Then the Hawaiian Islands attracted their attention, and, as William put it, they “went with high hopes and the spirit of a pioneer toward strange lands and all the beauty of sky and sea in the blue Pacific.” (Herb and William were headed to Hawai‘i.)

On January 9, 1900, we sailed out of Golden Gate toward the Great adventure …”

“The Surprise, a two-masted schooner-equipped with one of the first gas engines of considerable horsepower – under the command of Captain Bray, was headed for the Hawaiian Group to engage in inter-island trade, serving the Kona Sugar Co., of Kailua – a most promising business.”

“Although there was then no actual tourist trade, which has of late years assumed such importance in Hawaii, all ships on their way to or from the Orient and Australia made Honolulu a port of call, and the harbor in 1900 was always a veritable forest of masts so that mooring was at a premium.”

“In fact, from twenty to thirty additional ships were always anchored in ‘Rotten Row,’ from where the chanteys of the windlass crews sounded out, floating across the smooth water to shore.”

“Herb was chief engineer aboard the Surprise while J served before the mast. It was a pleasant trip. Harry Wharton, later captain, was first mate; an Englishman, Harry, was the other sailor, but the real character was Tom, the cook, who fed us so much salt beef that the salt came through our pores and stuck to our shirts in the sun.”

“On the trip to Honolulu Herb would sit by me in the evening as I stood my trick at the wheel. The deepening glory of the Pacific sunset, as the ship rose and fell on a lazy ocean, tinted every spar and line and sail with colors that surpassed any we had ever seen back home in coastal waters.”

“Night after night we talked, in the dusk as the stars came out and the Southern Cross hung in the sky, of Hawaii, the Paradise of the Pacific. Captain Bray, a bluff, good-hearted skipper if I ever met one, told us yams of the Islands and described them as the most marvelous place a man could imagine.”

“For years we had heard tales of Hawaii; now at last we were to see it for ourselves. Every passing hour, every wave curling under our bows brought us so much nearer, and the eyes of youth, straining ahead of the ship, seemed almost to glimpse a palm-fringed shore where life was gay and living carefree.”

“Singularly enough, for the first time since I had become fired with the ambition to hunt sharks. I found myself giving little thought to the possibilities of shark fishing among the Islands.”

“The prospect of seeing and living in these elysian isles had unceremoniously overshadowed my original purpose in going there. I was, to put it mildly, all anticipation.”

“Yet no sooner had we set foot on Hawaiian soil than the old urge flared up again. Wherever I went I found the subject one of absorbing interest to all hands …”

“… but I soon discovered that, as usual, no one knew anything about sharks except rumors, legends and the apocryphal yarns of sailors who needed no encouragement to tell how they had outswum, tricked, caught or killed one or more sharks in desperate hand-to-fin encounters.”

“In fact, so avid was my quest for authentic information that I soon became known as ‘Sharky Bill,’ which name identifies me still in many ports and among many seafaring people.”

“At last, on January 19, after a fine voyage, we Sighted Honolulu. The green shores. the white beach and coral formations, the boats of the Kanakas, the town rising at the harbor edge to be lost in the verdure of the tropical plants …”

“… the great forest of masts and spars in the harbor, the clear water and brilliant coloring of everything within eyeshot made a picture that the years could not dim. Here at last was the land of my dreams, the real El Dorado, the place which one may leave, but to which he will always return, the enchanting isles where there is no good-bye, but only Aloha.”

“We dropped anchor at quarantine and stood on deck, silently, in wonder at the natural beauty of the island. Would our dreams come true here?”

“At the very outset it seemed that our plans were to lead only to disappointment. We could not even go ashore. Honolulu was under quarantine for bubonic plague. People had been dying off like flies and supervision was strict.”

“The night before our arrival one of the dilapidated thatched hovels in Chinatown had been burned by order of the authorities to rid the neighborhood of contagion, and the fire had been permitted to spread unchecked.”

“Chinatown was a smoldering mass of ruins where only a short time before dirty streets had been peopled with touts, women of easy virtue, hop-heads, smoke eaters, thieves, and beggars.”

“Honolulu had rid herself of a festering sore, and the populace was living in detention camps already built on the outskirts of the town. It was the end of an era.”

“We conferred on the situation. Obviously, if we landed we would be quarantined along with everybody else, and there was no telling when we might be free to make our start in trade among the islands.”

“Herb and I had just seventy-five dollars between us, which wasn’t very much. It had to last until we were able to find some new occupation. The decision was easy as we were in no danger of starvation aboard the Surprise, and we could still have our jobs there.”

“So, for the next three months we plied between Honolulu, on the island of Oahu, and Kailua, on Hawai‘i, a total distance of perhaps 150 miles.”

“If there happened to be a lumber shipment in Honolulu harbor for another port quarantine restrictions forced us to pick up floating lumber. Any cargo such as machinery was transferred from a lighter alongside our ship, but not before it was thoroughly sprayed with strong disinfectant.”

“But away from the danger zone we could land on any island, enjoying to the full the thrill of exploring a new land which was beautiful far beyond anything we had ever imagined.”

“Once we came very near losing not only our liberty but our ship and cargo. Harry, the mate, complained one evening of a swelling in the groin, high fever and all the symptoms of the dreaded plague.”

“It was sailing night, and any minute we expected the quarantine doctor to come aboard in order to give us our ‘pratique,’ or medical clearance. Visions of the authorities burning ship, cargo and all our effects rose before us. Yet there was nothing we could do except wait and see what happened.”

“Finally he climbed over the side. The crew, cook, captain, all lined up for critical inspection. Harry was last in line, feeling pretty low. But the swift tropical twilight came on in time to hide the feverish flush of his cheeks.”

“The doctor, impatient, scarcely gave him a glance, and signed clearance. What a relief! At nightfall we set sail and luck was with us again, for the mate’s ailment was not bubonic, but a localized infection which passed off after a few days.”

Younger brother Jack (my grandfather) arrived in October 1900.  I am the youngest brother of the youngest brother of the youngest brother of Young Brothers.

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Jack Edgar and Will Young 1903
Jack Edgar and Will Young 1903
Boats_in_Honolulu_Harbor-1900
Boats_in_Honolulu_Harbor-1900
Honolulu_Harbor-1890
Honolulu_Harbor-1890
Honolulu_Waterfront-1890
Honolulu_Waterfront-1890
Honolulu_Waterfront-1905
Honolulu_Waterfront-1905
On_Honolulu_Waterfront-1890
On_Honolulu_Waterfront-1890
Several_Ships_at_Anchor_in_Honolulu_Harbor-1900
Several_Ships_at_Anchor_in_Honolulu_Harbor-1900
Ships_in_Honolulu_Harbor-1900
Ships_in_Honolulu_Harbor-1900
Kenny Young
Kenny Young

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Herman Melville

Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819.  The family name was Melvill, and he added the “e” to the name.  His father was a merchant from New England. His mother came from an old, socially prominent New York Dutch family.

Melville lived his first 11 years in New York City.  After the collapse of the family’s import business in 1830 and Allan Melvill’s death in 1832, Herman’s oldest brother, Gansevoort, assumed responsibility for the family and took over his father’s business.

After two years as a bank clerk and some months working on the farm of his uncle, Thomas Melvill, Herman joined his brother in the business. About this time, Herman’s branch of the family altered the spelling of its name.

Inexperienced and now poor, Melville tried a variety of jobs between 1832 and 1841. He was a clerk in his brother’s hat store in Albany, worked in his uncle’s bank, taught school near Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

In 1839, at the age of 20, Melville took his first voyage across the Atlantic sea as a cabin boy on the merchant ship the St. Lawrence.  After this expedition and a year exploring the West, Melville joined the crew of the whaling ship Acushnet in January of 1841.

He later sailed for a year and a half aboard the Acushnet; Melville and a fellow seaman deserted the ship, only to be captured by cannibals in the Marquesas Islands, the Typee.  But the natives turned out to be gentle hosts.

More than five months after deserting the Acushnet, Melville’s adventures were not over.  He later joined the crew of whaler Charles and Henry, where he worked as harpooner.

When the Charles and Henry anchored in Maui Island five months later in April of 1843, Melville took up work as a clerk and bookkeeper in a general store in Honolulu.

On August 17, 1843, he enlisted as a seaman on the frigate “United States,” flagship of the Navy’s Pacific Squadron.

His four years during his twenties (1841-1845) working on whaling ships provided him with material for his first three novels.  Melville was also able to communicate the fear and terror of a whale hunt, a feat that would make his greatest work, Moby Dick, a literary tribute to the whaling industry.

Melville returned to his mother’s house determined to write about his adventures. His subsequent writings borrowed from his own experiences as well as other peoples’ fantastic stories that he heard during his travels.

The books that recounted his experiences and made his reputation were Typee (1846); Omoo (1847); Mardi (1849), a complex symbolic romance set in the South Seas; Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850).

Melville then began Moby-Dick, another “whaling voyage,” as he called it, similar to his successful travel books. He had almost completed the book when he met Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, etc.) Hawthorne inspired him to radically revise the whaling documentary into a novel of both universal significance and literary complexity.

Melville had a brief stay in Hawaiʻi.

In 1843, he spent four months in Hawaiʻi; at some point early in his stay he worked in a Honolulu bowling alley as a pinsetter.  He also spent time beachcombing in Lāhainā.

He describes surfing in passages of Mardi and a Voyage Thither (his first pure fiction work – reportedly based on his travels linked to his brief stay in the Islands:)
“Past the break in the reef, wide banks of coral shelve off, creating the bar where the waves muster for the onset, thundering in water bolts that shake the whole reef till its very spray trembles. And then is it that the swimmers of Ohonoo most delight to gambol in the surf.”

“For this sport a surfboard is indispensable, some five feet in length, the width of a man’s body, convex on both sides, highly polished, and rounded at the ends. It is held in high estimation, invariably oiled after use, and hung up conspicuously in the dwelling of the owner.”

“Ranged on the beach, the bathers by hundreds dash in and, diving under the swells, make straight for the outer sea, pausing not till the comparatively smooth expanse beyond has been gained. Here, throwing themselves upon their boards, tranquilly they wait for a billow that suits.”

“Snatching them up, it hurries them landward, volume and speed both increasing till it races along a watery wall like the smooth, awful verge of Niagara. Hanging over this scroll, looking down from it as from a precipice, the bathers halloo, every limb in motion to preserve their place on the very crest of the wave.”

“Should they fall behind, the squadrons that follow would whelm them; dismounted and thrown forward, as certainly would they be run over the steed they ride. ’Tis like charging at the head of cavalry; you must on.”

“An expert swimmer shifts his position on his plank, now half striding it and anon, like a rider in the ring, poising himself upright in the scud, coming on like a man in the air.”

“At last all is lost in scud and vapor, as the overgrown billow bursts like a bomb. Adroitly emerging, the swimmers thread their way out and, like seals at the Orkneys, stand dripping upon the shore.”  (Herman Melville)

Melville died September 28, 1891.  (The inspiration and information, here, is primarily from pbs-org)

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