The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-05-21
By Alexander Hume Ford.

No place in all the world has ever
offered to the enthusiast so many
varied. attractive sports as can Ha-
waii, No Olympian games. past or
present, no carnival of sports ever
conceived and carried out in other
lands at vast expense, ever began with
the possibilities that lie about US ready
TO be brought together in a whole so
colossal that it might well surprise
our own people and would certainly
cause the world to turn its eyes to-
ward Hawaii. earth's IenIp3-a iisa,
where people of every nation and cline
have foregathered to perpetuate in
these happy isles those athletic sports
that have made men Of Drawn and
brain in hundred lands. A carnival
Of Hawaiian sports would Ieni itself
to picturesque advertising that would
beggar the Imagination of any press
agent that ever promoted to success
any revival of Olympian games.
What has Hawaii to offer that be-
Titles the Olympic games? All that
they have offered, and tenfold more.
There is only one place in the whole
world where men come riding in upon
the crests of the waves, like gods
erect-Hawaii. The world must come
TO Hawaii to witness this king of
sports. Nowhere else do great polish
ed mahogany canoes come racing in
upon the downslope of giant waves
at a speed of forty miles an hour. The
Olympian games attained eternal &C.
lebrity because they were simple. In
the old days the Hawaiian chiefs
prided themselves upon throwing the
discus-as did the Greeks of old. To-
day the Hawaiians are reyiving their
old national sports. ONLY i'll Hawaii 40
men live VINO remember the manner
in which their primitive fathers swept
down the grassy precipices upon bits
of board. and their sons are to learn
again this almost forgotten sport of
Hawaii.
Even the woman of Hawaii have a
sport to offer picturesque in the ex-
treme, of which they alone are mis-
tresses-pa-u riding. Organizations
there are in Hawaii for perpetuating
these sports, so there would be no diff
ficulty in presenting them again in
all their pastime splendor. In other
lands the Olympian games are but an
imitation: in Hawaii such sports are
still part of the life of the people.
With US it is real
There are Hawaiians, it is said. who
can do Inarvels in the way of foot
diving, leaping from a height Of loo
feet into twenty-four inches of water
and barely dipping beneath the sur
face. The old jumping places are still
known. and there are Hawaiians who
sstins contest in these wonderful feats
of daring. Even Hawaiian girls make
these Ieaps-this. may not seem ex-
traordinary to US, but TO the outside
world it is suggestive of the romance
of a primitive people.
Next winter many Of these Hawai-
ian sports will be shown in moving
pictures throughout America. Would
that the world-famous lecturer could
announce a coming carnival of such
sports-in addition TO others in which
the ablest wrestlers Of Japan. the most
skilled kitehyers of China, the best
cricketers in Australia, would compete
with their own countrymen, and other
nations, in Hawaii. We have all the
material in embryo here Prince Roku
kandaru, the famous cricketeT Of Fiji,
would gladly bring. not only his IA
NOUS team of cricketers here to meet
those Of Canada. England, America
and Australia, but would undoubtedly
come with d number Of his own Fl
jan canoes and their crews, to contest
in either sailing or padding races
with those Of Hawaii: nor would II