instant for making the grand push
occurred when one of the highest waves was about to break--for the
greater the dash, the greater the lull after it. But how these fellows
managed to discover, beforehand, that the wave, upon the back of
which they chose to ride in, was of that exact description, I could
never discover. On the approach of a swell which he knows will answer
his purpose, the steersman, suddenly changing his quiet and almost
contemplative air for a look of intense anxiety, grasps his oar with
double firmness, and exerting his utmost strength of muscle, forces
the boat's stern round, so that her head may point to the shore. At
the same time he urges his crew to exert themselves, partly by violent
stampings with his feet, partly by loud and vehement exhortations, and
partly by a succession of horrid yells, in which the sounds Yarry!
Yarry!! Yarry!!! predominate--indicating to the ears of a stranger the
very reverse of self-confidence, and filling the soul of a nervous
passenger with infinite alarm.

Those fearful noises are loudly re-echoed by all the other men, who
strain themselves so vigorously at the oars, that the boat, flying
forwards, almost keeps way with the wave, on the back of which it is
the object of the steersman to keep her. As she is swept impetuously
towards the bar, a person seated in the boat can distinctly feel the
sea under him gradually rising under a sheer wave, and lifting the
boat up--and up--and up, in a manner exceedingly startling. At length
the ridge, near the summit of which the boat is placed, begins to
curl, and its edge just breaks into a line of white fringe along the
upper edge of the perpendicular face presented to the shore, towards
which it is advancing with vast rapidity. The grand object of the
boatmen now appears to consist in maintaining their position, not on
the very crown of the wave, but a little further to seaward, down the
slope, so as to ride upon its shoulders, as it were. The importance of
this precaution becomes apparent, when the curling surge, no longer
able to maintain its elevation, is dashed furiously forwards, and
dispersed into an immense sheet of foam, broken by innumerable eddies
and whirlpools, into a confused sea of irregular waves rushing
tumultuously together, and casting the spray high into the air by
impinging one against the other. This furious turmoil often whirls the
masullah boat round and round, in spite of the despairing outcries of
the