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15. The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery (1967)
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chapter 15 The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery (1967) David Samwell c. 1751–1799 After spending most of 1779 off the coast of North America looking for a northwest passage, Cook’s two ships returned to winter in the islands (Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau) that they had crossed earlier that year. They arrived to the southeast of those islands, sighting Maui in late November, then the most southern island, Hawai‘i, where the ships found harbor at Kealakekua Bay. Samwell was surgeon’s mate first aboard the Resolution, then the Discovery after the death of William Anderson in 1778. His journal entry describes a scene that emphasizes the stark contrast between Western and Polynesian cultures and their relationship with the ocean: what Samwell recorded as an activity that would be “nothing but Horror & Destruction” for the mariners was mere child’s play to the young Hawaiians riding their surfboards. Kealakekua Bay, Hawai‘i January 22, 1779 As two or three of us were walking along shore to day we saw a number of boys & young Girls playing in the Surf, which broke very high on the Beach as there was a great swell rolling into the Bay. In the first place they provide themselves with a thin board about six or seven foot long & about 2 broad, on these they swim off shore to meet the Surf, as soon as they see one coming they get themselves in readiness & turn their sides to it, they suffer themselves to be involved in it & then manage so as to get just before it or rather on the Slant or declivity of the Surf, & thus they lie with their Hands lower than their Heels laying hold of the fore part of the board which receives the force of the water on its under side, & by that means keeps before the wave which drives it along with an incredible Swiftness to the shore. The Motion is so rapid for near the Space of a stones throw that they seem to fly on the water, the flight of a bird being 70 hardly quicker than theirs. On their putting off shore if they meet with the Surf too near in to afford them a tolerable long Space to run before it they dive under it with the greatest Ease & proceed further out to sea. Sometimes they fail in trying to get before the surf, as it requires great dexterity & address, and after struggling awhile in such a tremendous wave that we should have judged it impossible for any human being to live in it, they rise on the other side laughing and shaking their Locks & push on to meet the next Surf when they generally succeed, hardly ever being foiled in more than one attempt. Thus these People find one of their Chief amusements in that which to us presented nothing but Horror & Destruction, and we saw with astonishment young boys & Girls about 9 or ten years of age playing amid such tempestuous Waves that the hardiest of our seamen would have trembled to face, as to be involved in them among the Rocks, on which they broke with a tremendous Noise, they could look upon as no other than certain death. the journals of captain james cook | 71 ...