 |

 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |

In one place we came upon a large company of naked natives, of both sexes and all ages, amusing themselves with the national pastime of surf-bathing. Each heathen would paddle three or four hundred yards out to sea, (taking a short board with him), then face the shore and wait for a particularly prodigious billow to come along; at the right moment he would fling his board upon its foamy crest and himself upon the board, and here he would come whizzing by like a bombshell! It did not seem that a lightning express train could shoot along at a more hair-lifting speed. I tried surf-bathing once, subsequently, but made a failure of it. I got the board placed right, and at the right moment, too; but missed the connection myself.The board struck the shore in three quarters of a second, without any cargo, and I struck the bottom about the same time, with a couple of barrels of water in me.Mark Twain, Roughing It, 1872

|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 Charity School in Honolulu
Courtesy of The Bishop Museum |
 |
 Royal Palace, Hawaii
Courtesy of The Bishop Museum |
|
|
 |

 |
 Illustration from Roughing It
Courtesy of The Mark Twain House, Hartford |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |

We had an abundance of fruit in Honolulu, of course. Oranges, pine-apples, bananas, strawberries, lemons, limes, mangoes, guavas, melons, and a rare and curious luxury called the chirimoya, which is deliciousness itself. Then there is the tamarind. I thought tamarinds were made to eat, but that was probably not the idea. I ate several, and it seemed to me that they were rather sour that year. They pursed up my lips, till they resembled the stem-end of a tomato, and I had to take my sustenance through a quill for twenty-four hours. They sharpened my teeth till I could have shaved with them, and gave them a wire edge that I was afraid would stay; but a citizen said, No, it will come off when the enamel doeswhich was comforting, at any rate. I found, afterward, that only strangers eat tamarindsbut they only eat them once.Mark Twain, Roughing It, 1872

|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |