CHAPTER XVI.
HAWAIIAN SPORTS.
_In wrestling nimble, and in running swift,_ _In shooting steady, and in swimming strong,_ _Well made to strike, to leap, to throw, to lift,_ _And all the sports that shepherds are among._
_Tuesday, December 26th_.--We went ashore at eight o'clock, after an early cup of coffee, and found Mr. Lyman already waiting for us. Two baggage-mules were sent off with the photographic apparatus, and all the materials for breakfast, to the Rainbow Falls, where the children are looking forward with intense glee to boiling their own kettle, poaching eggs, and trying other cooking experiments.
Before setting out for the Falls ourselves, we went to see the national sport of surf-swimming, for their skill in which the Hawaiians are so justly famed.
The natives have many other games of which they are very fond, and which they play with great skill, including spear-throwing, transfixing an object with a dart, _kona_, an elaborate kind of draughts, and _talu_, which consists in hiding a small stone under one of five pieces of cloth, placed in front of the players. One hides the stone, and the others have to guess where it is; and it generally happens that, however dexterously the hider may put his arm beneath the cloth, and dodge about from one piece to another, a clever player will be able to tell, by the movement of the muscles of the upper part of his arm, when his fingers relax their hold of the stone. Another game, called _parua_, is very like the Canadian sport of 'tobogging,' only that it is carried on on the grass instead of on the snow. The performers stand bolt upright on a narrow plank, turned up in front, and steered with a sort of long paddle. They go to the top of a hill or mountain, and rush down the steep, grassy, sunburnt slopes at a tremendous pace, keeping their balance in a wonderful manner. There is also a very popular amusement, called _pahé_, requiring a specially prepared smooth floor, along which the javelins of the players glide like snakes. On the same floor they also play at another game, called _maita_, or _uru maita_. Two sticks, only a few inches apart, are stuck into the ground, and at a distance of thirty or forty yards the players strive to throw a stone between them. The _uru_ which they use for the purpose is a hard circular stone, three or four inches in diameter, and an inch in thickness at the edge, but thicker in the middle.
Mr. Ellis, in his 'Polynesian Researches,' states that 'these stones are finely polished, highly valued, and carefully preserved, being always oiled or wrapped up in native cloth after having been used. The people are, if possible, more fond of this game than of the _pahé_, and the inhabitants