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