The surf is often bad, they could only work when it was calm, and while they were doing nothing, wages mounted up.

And yet, in spite of the wind and the sea and the clean light of the forenoon, there was a sadness about the place, and an undercurrent of uneasy silence that the rustling of the leaves and the noise of the surf only seemed to accentuate.

This accident kept them prisoners for a week till the wind and surf had abated.

Their position was now as desperate as could be imagined: the southerly winds had set in, and they had to coast along a surf-beaten shore against a head wind.

SURF RIDING.

The surf-riding struck the visitors with admiration.

The next day the boats tried to find another landing-place, but the surf was too heavy; and when two canoes were seen coming in from the sea, Cook determined to intercept them and try to come to friendly terms.

An attempt was unsuccessfully made at a place that has been identified a little north of Five Islands, near Illawarra, but the surf was too heavy.

The rushes of the wind, which at first were broken, at intervals resembling the roar of a chimney-top in a gale, had soon reached the fearful grandeur of those aërial wheelings of squadrons, to which we have more than once alluded, passing off in dread mutterings, that, in the deep quiet of all other things, bore a close affinity to the rumbling of a surf upon the sea-shore.

To the mariner sailing by India's coral strand that country presents the aspect of an endless beach of shell sand, quite innocent of coral, on which the surf breaks continually into dazzling white foam against a dark background of pensive palms.

Before they reached the village, however, Atkins had leaped into the boat, and with a cheer the men ran her out into the surf, and scrambled in.

At first their shadowy helms in the faint distance The tree-tops rear; then, as he nearer glides, The white surf gleams where the firm reef's resistance Meets and hurls back the fiercely charging tides.

He sees outspread the wide sea-beach, all sparkling With coral sand and many-tinted shells, While high above, in tropic rankness darkling, A cloud of verdure ever-brooding dwells, With growing wonder and delight the stranger, While his swift shallop nears the enchanted strand, Sees the white surf cleared with one flash of danger, And a broad portal opening through the land.

"Fool!" exclaimed Miss Panney, who, with flushed face, was hurrying after the rest, "why didn't he take it with him?" When the bathing master reached a point opposite the imperilled swimmers, he was obliged to wait a little for the life-line, but as soon as it reached him he tied one end of it around his waist and plunged into the surf.

She went on, in a voice that the noise of the surf could not drown, to tell him that she hoped ten thousand more people would say the same thing to him, and to declare that he ought to have several boats outside during bathing hours, so that people could cling to some of them, and so, perhaps, save themselves from exhaustion on their return, and so that one, at least, could be kept free to succor the distressed.

If by looking at certain details of this composite structure one could shut off the surroundings from the eye, the mind might feed without any hindrance upon the ideas of old piety and the fervour of souls who, when Europe was like a troubled and forlorn sea, sought the quietude and safety of these rocks, lifted far above the raging surf.

As we could not find any place where we could possibly land our boat in safety, I and two more swam on shore with bags tied round our necks to hold the eggs in, and the boat with one of the men lay off, out of the surf.

It was a work of considerable difficulty to get our booty safe into the boatso frail a cargowith so tremendous a surf running against us.

The eldest boy wrapt around his younger brother his little cloak, to shield him from the surf and sleet, and then drew him close to his side and said to him, "the night will not be long, and as the wind blows we shall the sooner reach our home and see the peet fire glow."

But such sounds did not disturb the universal stillness of the hour; neither did the gambols of yonder group of seals and walruses that were at play round some fantastic blocks of ice; nor did the soft murmur of the swell that broke in surf at the foot of yonder iceberg, whose blue sides were seamed with a thousand watercourses, and whose jagged pinnacles rose up like needles of steel into the clear atmosphere.

Twenty yards beyond them, amid the surf of the now returning tide, two others were emerging from the sea.

This applies particularly to the Melanesian and Polynesian inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, whose chief pastimes are swimming and surf riding.

And now, as we stand motionless on the eminence over Ana Mánoo, the whistling of the wind among the branches of the lofty toa shall fill us with a pleasing melancholy; or our minds shall be seized with astonishment as we behold the roaring surf below, endeavoring but in vain to tear away the firm rocks.

but heavily manned canoe dashed through the surf and shot in among the bathers.

Owing to the heavy surf which continually breaks on the north coast, these rivers have bars across their embouchures which do not allow large vessels to enter.