He Is Impassive, Motionless As A
Statue Carved Suddenly By Some Miracle Out Of The Sea's Depth From
Which He Rose.
And straight on toward shore he flies on his winged
heels and the white crest of the breaker.
There is a wild burst of
foam, a long tumultuous rushing sound as the breaker falls futile
and spent on the beach at your feet; and there, at your feet steps
calmly ashore a Kanaka, burnt, golden and brown by the tropic sun.
Several minutes ago he was a speck a quarter of a mile away. He has
"bitted the bull-mouthed breaker" and ridden it in, and the pride in
the feat shows in the carriage of his magnificent body as he glances
for a moment carelessly at you who sit in the shade of the shore.
He is a Kanaka - and more, he is a man, a member of the kingly
species that has mastered matter and the brutes and lorded it over
creation.
And one sits and thinks of Tristram's last wrestle with the sea on
that fatal morning; and one thinks further, to the fact that that
Kanaka has done what Tristram never did, and that he knows a joy of
the sea that Tristram never knew. And still further one thinks. It
is all very well, sitting here in cool shade of the beach, but you
are a man, one of the kingly species, and what that Kanaka can do,
you can do yourself. Go to.
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Words from 19405 to 19654
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