Their music is also of a ruder kind, having neither flutes nor reeds, nor instruments of any other sort, that we saw, except drums of various sizes.  But their songs, which they sung in parts,[10] and accompany with a gentle motion of the arms, in the same manner as the Friendly Islanders, had a very pleasing effect.

It is very remarkable that the people of these islands are great gamblers.  They have a game very much like our draughts; but if one may judge from the number of squares, it is much more intricate.  The board is about two feet long, and is divided into two hundred and thirty-eight squares, of which there are fourteen in a row; and they make use of black and white pebbles, which they move from square to square.

There is another game, which consists in hiding a stone under a piece of cloth, which one of the parties spreads out, and rumples in such a manner that the place where the stone lies is difficult to be distinguished.  The antagonist, with a stick, then strikes the part of the cloth where he imagines the stone to be; and as the chances are, upon the whole, considerably against his hitting it, odds, of all degrees, varying with the opinion of the skill of the parties, are laid on the side of him who hides.

Besides these games, they frequently amuse themselves with racing matches between the boys and girls; and here, again, they wager with great spirit.  I saw a man in a most violent rage, tearing his hair, and beating his breast, after losing three hatchets at one of these races, which he had just before purchased from us with half his substance.

Swimming is not only a necessary art, in which both their men and women are more expert than any people we had hitherto seen, but a favourite diversion amongst them.  One particular mode, in which they sometimes amused themselves with this exercise, in Karakakooa Bay, appeared to us most perilous and extraordinary, and well deserving a distinct relation.

The surf, which breaks on the coast round the bay, extends to the distance of about one hundred and fifty yards from the shore, within which space the surges of the sea, accumulating from the shallowness of the water, are dashed against the beach with prodigious violence.  Whenever, from stormy weather, or any extraordinary swell at sea, the impetuosity of the surf is increased to its utmost height, they choose that time for this amusement, which is performed in the following manner:  Twenty or thirty of the natives, taking each a long narrow board, rounded at the ends, set out together from the shore.  The first wave they meet they plunge under, and, suffering it to roll over them, rise again beyond it, and make the best of their way, by swimming out into the sea.  The second wave is encountered in the same manner with the first; the great difficulty consisting in seizing the proper moment of diving under it, which, if missed, the person is caught by the surf, and driven back again with great violence; and all his dexterity