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The island of the stairs

Chapter 2: EDITOR’S NOTE
By Cyrus Townsend Brady
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About This Book

The narrator, a seasoned sailor, begins by discovering Sir Geoffrey dead and carrying an envelope meant for Mistress Lucy, then recounts a subsequent voyage in a small barque to a remote, reef‑encircled island. On shore the party finds stepped terraces, altars, and grotesque stone figures whose makers and meanings remain obscure. The narrative alternates shipboard life, interpersonal tensions, and on‑island exploration as characters grapple with secrets, ritual places, and the consequences of past actions. Themes of mortality, loyalty, curiosity, and the uneasy meeting of outsider and ancient custom run through this seafaring adventure and memoir.

EDITOR’S NOTE

In order to safeguard the reputation of that worthy seaman and most gallant gentleman who writes this memoir, the editor thereof deems it proper to call attention to the fact that Master Hampdon has described accurately the Island of Mangaia of the Cook, or Hervey, group in the South Seas. It is still completely encircled by the unbroken barrier reef, over which the natives ride in their light canoes. The stairs still exist despite the earthquake to which Master Hampdon refers—and other upheavals which may have followed—and are still traversed by the feet of curious, if infrequent, visitors. For the rest, such altars and platforms as he and his little lady found still abound in the South Seas. Also on Easter Island, and on others, too, such statues of the grotesque and hideous “Stone Goddes” as he describes may be seen. Who made them and why, as well as when they were put there, are as much mysteries today as they were when, in that far-off time, Master Hampdon and his lady sailed those then unknown seas in that brave little barque The Rose of Devon.

C. T. B.

Mount Vernon, N. Y.