1823: MISSIONARY WILLIAM ELLIS, WAIMANU, HAWAII: "THE ONLY CIRCUMSTANCE THAT EVER MARS THEIR PLEASURE IS THE APPROACH OF A SHARK"

Reverend William Ellis, from London, traveled and wrote extensively, and is best remembered for his book Polynesian Researches. Less ideologically severe than fellow missionaries such as Hiram Bingham, and more inclined to observation and science, Ellis' description of surfing, as surf historian Patrick Moser noted, was "the most influential account of surfriding throughout the 19th century," and ...

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