Words such as nui, iti, and roa, when they have become in themselves geographical names, are treated as proper nouns, otherwise as adjectives.

For further historical details, see below, pp. 200–10.

Easter Island at last! It was in the misty dawn of Sunday, March 29th, 1914, that we first saw our destination, just one week in the year earlier than the Easter Day it was sighted by Roggeveen and his company of Dutchmen. We had been twenty days at sea since leaving Juan Fernandez, giving a wide berth to the few dangerous rocks which constitute Salo-y-Gomez and steering directly into the sunset. It was thirteen months since we had left Southampton, out of which time we had been 147 days under way, and here at last was our goal. As we approached the southern coast we gazed in almost awed silence at the long grey mass of land, broken into three great curves, and diversified by giant molehills (fig. 23). The whole looked an alarmingly big land in which to find hidden caves. The hush was broken by the despairing voice of Bailey, the ship’s cook. “I don’t know how I am to make a fire on that island, there is no wood!” He spoke the truth; not a vestige of timber or even brushwood was to be seen. We swung round the western headland with its group of islets and dropped anchor in Cook’s Bay. A few hundred yards from the shore is the village of Hanga Roa, the native name for Cook’s Bay. This is the only part of the island which is inhabited, the two hundred and fifty natives, all that remain of the population, having, been gathered together here in order to secure the safety of the livestock, to which the rest of the island is devoted. The yacht was soon surrounded by six or seven boat-loads of natives, clad in nondescript European garments, but wearing a head-covering of native straw, somewhat resembling in appearance the high hat of civilisation (fig. 83).

The Manager, Mr. Edmunds, shortly appeared, and to our relief, for we had not been sure how he would view such an invasion, gave us a very kind welcome. He is English, and was, to all intent, at the time of our arrival, the only white man on the island; a French carpenter, who lived at Hanga Roa with a native wife, being always included in the village community. His house is at Mataveri (fig. 25), a spot about two miles to the south of the village, surrounded by modern plantations which are almost the only trees on the island; immediately behind it rises the swelling mass of the volcano Rano Kao. The first meal on Easter Island, taken here with Mr. Edmunds, remains a lasting memory. It was a large plain room with uncarpeted floor, scrupulously orderly; a dinner-table, a few chairs, and two small book-cases formed the whole furniture. The door on to the veranda was open, for the night was hot, and the roar of breakers could be heard on the beach; while near at hand conversation was accompanied by a never-ceasing drone of mosquitoes. The light of the unshaded lamp was reflected from the clean rough-dried cloth of the table round which we sat, and lit up our host’s features, the keen brown face of a man who had lived for some thirty years or more, most of it in the open air and under a tropical sun. He was telling us of events which one hardly thought existed outside magazines and books of adventure, but doing it so quietly that, with closed eyes, it might have been fancied that the entertainment was at some London restaurant, and we were still at the stage of discussing the latest play.

“This house,” said our host, “was built some fifty years ago by Bornier, who was the first to exploit the island. He was murdered by the natives: they seized the moment when he was descending from a ladder; one spoke to him and another struck him down. They buried him on the hillock near the cliff just outside the plantation: you will see his grave, when the grass is not so long; it is marked by a circle of stones. A French warship arriving almost immediately afterwards, they explained that he had been killed by a fall from his horse, and this is the version still given in some of the accounts of the island, but murder will always out. After that another manager had trouble: it was over sheep-stealing. There were three or four white men here at the time, and they all rode down to the village to teach the natives a lesson, but the ponies turned restive at the sound of gun-fire, and the rifles themselves were defective, so the boot was on the other foot, and they had to retreat up here followed by the mob; for months they lived in what was practically a state of siege, with one man always on guard for fear of attack.

“My latest guests were a crew of shipwrecked mariners, Americans, who landed on the island last June. A fortnight earlier the barometer here had been extraordinarily low, but we did not get much wind; further to the south, however, the gale was terrific, and the El Dorado was in the midst of it. The captain, who had been a whaler in his day, said that he had never seen anything approaching it, the sea was simply a seething mass of crested waves. The ship was a schooner, trading between Oregon and a Chilean port; she was a long way from land, as sailing vessels make a big semicircle to get the best wind. She had a deck load of timber, 15 feet high, which of course shifted in such a sea; she sprang leaks in every direction, and it was obvious that she must soon break up. The crew took to their boat, not that they had much hope of saving their lives, but simply because there was nothing else to be done. They got some tins of milk and soup on board, and a box of biscuits, and a cask holding perhaps twenty gallons of water. The captain managed to secure his sextant, but when he went back for his chronometers, the chart-room was too deep in water for him to be able to reach them. They saw by the chart that the nearest land was this island: it was seven hundred miles off, and as they had no chronometer, and could take no risks, they would have to go north first in order to get their latitude, which would add on another two hundred. There was nothing for it, however, but to do the best they could; they had more gales too, and only saved the boat from being swamped by making a sea-anchor of their blankets. The spray of course kept washing over them, and as the boat was only 20 feet long and there were eleven of them, there was no room for them to lie down. Each day they had between them a tin of the soup and one of milk, and an allowance of water, but the sea got into the water-cask and made it brackish, and before the end their sufferings from thirst were so great that one or two of them attempted to drink salt water; the mate stopped that by saying that he would shoot the first man who did it.

“After nine days they sighted this island, but then luck was against them, for the wind changed, and it was forty-eight hours, after they saw the coast, before they were able to beach the boat. They got on shore at the other end of the island, which is uninhabited. They were pretty much at the last stage of exhaustion, and their skin was in a terrible condition with salt water; their feet especially were so bad that they could hardly walk. One of them fell down again and again, but struggled on saying, ‘I won’t give up, I won’t give up.’ At last my man, who looks after the cattle over there, saw them and brought me word. The officers were put up here, you must really forgive the limitations of my wardrobe, for I had to give away nearly everything that I had in order to clothe them.

“The most curious part of the whole business was that after they had been here three or four months the captain took to the boat again. I believe that he was buying his house at home on the instalment plan, and that if he did not get in the last payment by the end of the year the whole would be forfeited; anyway, as soon as the fine weather came on he had out the boat and patched her up. He got two of his men to go with him. I lent him a watch for navigation purposes, and we did all we could for him in the way of food; there were no matches on the island, so he learnt how to make fire with two pieces of wood native fashion. Anyway, off he started last October for Mangareva, sixteen hundred miles from here; he must have got there safely, for you brought me an answer to a letter that I gave him to post.^[11] But,” and here for the first time the eyes of our host grew animated, and he raised his voice slightly, “it is maddening to think of that cargo drifting about in the Pacific. I do trust that next time a ship breaks up with a deck-load of timber, she will have at least the commonsense to do so near Easter Island.” Then, after a pause, “I wish you no ill, but the yacht would make a splendid wreck.”

We kept Mana for nearly two months while learning our new surroundings. Not only were we anxious to find if we had the necessary camp gear and stores, but we were engaged in agonised endeavours to foresee the details of excavation and research, in case essential tools or equipment had been forgotten, which the yacht could fetch from Chile. The time, however, arrived when she must go. Mr. Ritchie was now on shore with us for survey work, but as his service with the Expedition was limited, the vessel had to return in time to take him back to civilisation by the correct date. Mr. Gillam had from this time sole charge of the navigation of Mana. Instructions for him had to be written, and correspondence grappled with; business letters, epistles for friends, and reports to Societies were hurriedly dealt with; and an article which had been promised to the Spectator, “First Impressions of Easter Island,” was written in my tent, by the light of a hurricane-lamp, during the small hours of more than one morning.

When the mail-bag was finally sealed, there was great difficulty in getting hold of Mana. The position of a skipper of a boat off Easter Island, unless she has strong steam power, is not a happy one. Mr. Gillam used to lie in his berth at Cook’s Bay hearing the waves break on the jagged reaches of lava, and the longer he listened the less he liked it. The instant that the wind shows signs of going to the west, a ship must clear out. It is reported that on one occasion there were some anxious moments on board: a sudden change of wind and tide were setting the yacht steadily on the rocks; the engineer was below in the engine-room, and Mr. Gillam shouted to him down the hatchway, “If you can’t make that motor of yours go round in three minutes, you will know whether there is a God or not.”

To get in touch with the yacht was like a game of hide-and-seek, for often by the time those on shore arrived at one side of the island, the wind had shifted, and she had run round to the other. She was on the north coast when we managed to catch her, and to get back to Mataveri necessitated retracing our steps, as will be seen from the map, over the high central ground of the island, and down on the other side; the track was rough, and the ride would ordinarily take from two to three hours. It was 4 p.m. before all work was done on board, the good-byes said, and we were put on shore; the sandy cove, the horses and men, with Mana in the offing, formed a delightful picture in the evening light, but there the charms of the situation ended. There was only one pack-horse, and a formidable body of last collections sat looking at us in a pile on the grass. In addition we had not, in the general pressure, sufficiently taken into account that we were bringing off the engineer, now to be turned into photographer; there he was, and not he alone but his goods and bedding. The sun set at five o’clock, and it would be dark at half-past five; it seemed hopeless to get back that night.

A neighbouring cave was first investigated as a possible abiding-place, but proved full of undesirable inhabitants, so everyone set to work and the amount stowed on that wretched pack-horse was wonderful. Then each attendant was slung round with some remaining object, S. took the additional member on his pony, and off we set. Before we got to the highest point all daylight had gone, and there was only just enough starlight to keep to the narrow track by each man following a dim vision of the one immediately in front. My own beast had been chosen as “so safe” that it was most difficult to keep him up with the others, let alone on his four legs. The pack-horse, too, began pointing out that he was not enjoying the journey; the load was readjusted more than once, but when we were on the down grade again he came to a full stop and we all dismounted. There in the creepy darkness we had a most weird picnic; not far off was a burial-place, with a row of fallen statues, while the only light save that of the stars was the striking of an occasional match. S. produced a tin of meat, which he had brought from the yacht, and which was most acceptable, as he and I had had no substantial food, save a divided tin of sardines, since breakfast at 7 o’clock. He shared it out between the party amid cries from our retainers of “Good food, good Pappa,” for we were, as in East Africa, known as “Pappa” and “Mam-ma” to a large and promising family. By some inducement the pack-horse was then deluded into proceeding, and we finally reached Mataveri at nine o’clock, relieved to find we had not been given up and that supper awaited us. So did we cut our last link with civilisation, and were left in mid-Pacific with statues and natives.

The next part of this story deals with the island, the conditions of life on it, and our experience during the sixteen months we were to spend there. Such scientific work as the Expedition was able to accomplish will be recounted later.

Easter is a volcanic land, and in the earliest days of the world’s history great lights and flowing lava must have gleamed across the expanse of water, then gradually lessened and died away, leaving their work to be moulded by wind and tide. The island, as the forces of nature have thus made it, is triangular in shape and curiously symmetrical. The length of the base—that is, of the south, or strictly speaking south-east, coast—is about thirteen miles, and the greatest width about seven miles; the circumference, roughly speaking, is thirty-four miles. The apex, which is the highest ground, is a volcano over 1,700 feet in height whose summit is formed of a cluster of small craters; the eastern and western angles are each composed of a large extinct volcano. The place is geologically young, and the mountains, in contrast to those of Juan Fernandez, still preserve their original rounded shape; there are no ravines, no wooded precipices, no inaccessible heights, but round the whole coast erosion is at work, with the result that, while on the land side the slopes of all these three mountains are gradual, on the sea side—that is, in portions of the north, east, and west coasts respectively—they have been worn back by the power of the waves into imposing cliffs. In the lower districts the sheets of lava form a shore line of some 50 to 100 feet in height, and extend into the sea in black, broken ridges. Against this coast of alternating high cliffs and jagged rocks the swell of the Pacific is always dashing, and in a high wind clouds of white spray first hide, and then reveal, the inhospitable shore.

The comparatively level and low-lying regions of the island, namely, those which are not covered by the three great volcanoes, consist of the south coast, and of two tracts which run across the island on either side. The high ground which forms the apex of the triangle is thus divided from that of the eastern and western angles respectively. Another level strip, some quarter of a mile wide at its broadest, lies in an elevated and romantic position around the northern apex between the highest portion of the central mountain and the precipitous sea-cliff. This distribution of the level ground is, as will be later seen, reflected in the disposition of the various clans which formerly spread over the island (fig. 91).

In addition to the three large mountains, there are smaller elevations some hundreds of feet in height, generally in the form of cones with craters distinctly visible. These lesser volcanoes, with one or two exceptions, may be roughly said to lie in two lines which radiate irregularly from the northern eminence, spreading out from it like fingers and pointing respectively to the east and west ends of the south coast. The hills, which may be termed the root of the fingers, form part of the high ground, while those equivalent to the tips rise out of the low-lying portion, where the east and west transverse belts join the southern plain.

In some instances the crater of a mountain has become a lake: when this is the case the term “rano” is prefixed to its name. It is quaintly told that one visitor, considering the volcanic origin, hazarded the suggestion that “rano” was equivalent to fire, to which the natives indignantly replied that, on the contrary, it meant water. These lakes are almost the only water-supply of the island: there is a good rainfall, but no single running stream. Owing to the porous nature of the ground the water sinks beneath the surface, sometimes forming underground channels from which it flows into the sea below high-water mark: thus giving rise to the curious statement of early voyagers that the natives were able to drink salt water^[12] (fig. 124). The lower portions of the island are composed of sheets of lava, in process of disintegration, across which walking is almost impossible and riding a very slow process; the surface of the mountains and hills is smoother, being volcanic ash. The whole is covered with grass, which sprouts up between the masses of lava and gives the hills a delightful down-like appearance. Forest growth has probably never consisted of more than brushwood and shrubs, and to-day even those have disappeared.

The best panorama of the island is obtained from the western volcano, by name Rano Kao (fig. 24). Below on the left lies Cook’s Bay, with Mataveri and the village of Hanga Roa, and beyond them the high bleak central ground of the island, generally known by the name of one of its craters, Rano Aroi. On the right is the plain of the south coast, culminating in the eastern headland, a district the greater part of which is known as Poike. Just in front of the headland can be seen the two peaks of the mountain of Rano Raraku, from which the statues were hewn and which is the most interesting place in the island; while on a clear day there can be obtained a glimpse of the northern coast and the sea beyond.

Such is Easter Island. It bears no resemblance to the ideal lotus-eating lands of the Pacific; rather, with its bleak grass-grown surface, its wild rocks and restless ocean, it recalls some of the Scilly Isles or the coast of Cornwall. It is not a beautiful country nor even a striking one, but it has a fascination of its own. All portions of it are accessible; from every part are seen marvellous views of rolling country; everywhere is the wind of heaven; around and above all are boundless sea and sky, infinite space and a great silence. The dweller there is ever listening for he knows not what, feeling unconsciously that he is in the antechamber to something yet more vast which is just beyond his ken.

The objects of antiquarian interest proved to be widely scattered. The statues have originally stood on a particular kind of burial-place, generally known as a “terrace” or “platform.” These terraces surround the whole coast, and each one had of course to be studied. For those at the western end, and for certain stone remains on the volcano of Rano Kao, Mataveri was a most convenient centre; but the distance from there to the places of interest at the other end of the island was unduly great. We therefore decided to avail ourselves of the offer of the Manager and remain for a while at his establishment, where Mana left us, and later move camp. Survey and photography had of course to keep pace with research, and a general look-out to be kept for any caves which it might pay to explore. There was also the question of getting into touch with the natives and finding if any lore existed which threw light on the antiquities: this last, from what we had been told in England, was not a very hopeful quest; anyway, it seemed wiser to defer it for the moment till we knew something of the language and were more at home in our surroundings.

The Manager’s house has six rooms, three of which are at the front, and three, having a separate entrance, at the back. These last, with a most useful attic, Mr. Edmunds kindly put at our disposal, and we supplemented the accommodation with tents pitched in the grounds. My own tent, for the sake of quietness, was on the western side of the plantation, about a hundred yards from the house. S. used to escort me down at night, with a camp lantern, by a little track through the eucalyptus trees, see that all was well, put down the light, and leave me with the mystery of the island. The site was one dedicated to cannibal feasts; immediately behind was the hillock with the grave of the murdered manager; while not far away the waves thundered against the cliffs, making in stormy weather the ground tremble as if with an earthquake. In the morning came the glory of the waking, of being at once tête à tête with air, sunshine, and dewy grass: to those who have not known the wonder of these things, it cannot be explained; to those who have experienced it, no words are needed.

Tent life is not all “beer and skittles”; Easter is too windy for an ideal camping-ground; my pitch was sheltered, but even so it seemed at times as if the structure would be carried away bodily. To preserve a tent in place taut ropes are needed, but if rain descends these shrink, and either burst with the strain or tear the pegs out of the ground: the conscientious dweller under canvas will, under these conditions, arise from his warm bed, and in the pouring deluge race round the tent, slacking off the said ropes. Mine, like the stripes of St. Paul, numbered forty save one. Before the end we were able to make different arrangements.

When we had been some three and a half months at Mataveri—that is, in the middle of July 1914—we felt that the time had come to begin work on the other end of the island. It must be remembered that our original idea was that six months would probably suffice for the whole inquiry, and in any case we had no intention of staying beyond the period which would allow of Mana’s making a second trip to Chile.

We therefore established ourselves at Rano Raraku as the most convenient site. It takes about two hours to ride there from Mataveri. The road is made, like all those in the island, by simply clearing away the stones, but it is wide enough to permit the passage of a wagon. It leads first across the island by the western transverse plain till, at Vaihu, the sea is reached, then runs along the south coast with its low rocks and continuous line of breaking surf. Every step of this part of the way is marked, for those who have eyes to see, with ruined burial-places; many of them strewn with the remains of the statues which have once been erected upon them. As Raraku is approached, there lie by the roadside isolated figures of portentous size, abandoned, it has been thought, in the act of removal from the quarries to the terraces. We grew to know by heart this road, which led from what we termed our “town establishment,” to our “country house,” and have ridden it, together or separately, at all hours and in every weather. We were not infrequently detained by business, at one end or the other, till too late to save the daylight, and after dark it was not easy to keep to the track, even with the help afforded by the sound of the breakers. Our ponies gave us no assistance in the difficulty, for as foals they had run wild with their mothers, and were, therefore, equally happy wandering off among the fields of broken lava. As the “twilight of the dove” gradually changed to the “twilight of the raven,” and the huge figures loomed larger than ever in the gathering gloom, it seemed that, if ever the spirits of the departed revisit their ancient haunts, the ghosts of the old image-makers must be all abroad about their works and places of burial.

Rano Raraku (fig. 45) stands by itself where the flat ground of the southern coast meets the eastern transverse plain, and forms the isolated tip of those lesser volcanoes which have been described as the eastern finger. About a mile to the eastward rises the high ground of Poike. Raraku scarcely deserves the name of mountain, being little more than a basin containing a crater lake; yet it curiously dominates the scene. There will be much to tell of it hereafter; for the moment suffice it to say that a large number of statues stand on its lower slopes, while above are the quarries from which, with very few exceptions, all the figures in the island have been obtained. The side nearest the sea is a sheer cliff, the extremities of which form the two peaks which are so characteristic of the mountain. Beneath the cliff is a flow of lava; here the French carpenter had managed to put up two iron huts which had been sent ahead from England; one was a store, the other formed my one-roomed villa residence. Their erection was somewhat of a triumph, as all the bolts had been stolen on the way. The rest of the camp, the tent for meals, that of S., and those for the servants, were pitched for protection about 50 feet lower down, on the further side of the lava flow; but even here, owing to the tearing wind which howled round the mountain, their canvas flies had to be tied back and walls erected around them (fig. 73). On every hand were the remains of native life prior to the removal of the inhabitants to Hanga Roa, the most welcome being a single well-grown tree of the sort known in tropical countries as the “umbrella tree.” It was the only example of its kind on the island, and was of an age that suggested it had been planted by the early missionaries.

The whole situation was not only one of striking beauty, but brought with it an indescribable sense of solemnity. Immediately above the camp towered the majestic cliff of Raraku, near at hand were its mysterious quarries and still erect statues; on the coast below us, quiet and still, lay the overturned images of the great platform of Tongariki, one fragment of which alone remains on its base, as a silent witness to the glory which has departed. The scene was most wonderful of all when the full moon made a track of light over the sea, against which the black mass of the terrace and the outline of the standing fragment were sharply defined; while the white beams turned the waving grass into shimmering silver and lit up every crevice in the mountain above.

Easter Island lies in the sub-tropics, and, if the question of wind be eliminated, the climate is as near perfection as possible in this world. There may be, especially in the winter months, a spell of three or four days of rain, or a wind from the Antarctic, when woollen clothes are welcome; and occasionally, in the summer, it is preferable to be indoors during the noontide hours; but with these exceptions, it is one of those rare localities where it is possible to be warm the whole year round, and yet to utilise to the full the hours of daylight. There are, as might be expected, too many insects; cockroaches abound, out of doors and under statues as well as in houses and tents; when things were very bad they might even be seen on the dinner-table. I was calmly told, with masculine insensibility, that “if I had not naturally a taste for such things, the sooner that I acquired it the better”; the only consolation was that they were of a handsome red variety and not shiny black. Flies also are numerous; I have counted two hundred in a bowl of soapy water, and six or eight at once on my hand while busy writing; “their tameness was shocking to me.” Mosquitoes, which have been imported, varied in their attentions; when they were at their worst it was necessary to wear head-gear and dine in gloves. There is said to be no fever in the islands; we had two or three attacks, but it may have been “original sin.” Once we had a plague of little white moths, and occasionally, for a short while, visitations of a small flying beetle, whose instinct seemed to be to crawl into everything, making it safer to stuff one’s ears with cotton-wool. On these occasions dinner had to be put earlier, owing to Bailey’s pathetic complaint that, with a lamp burning in the kitchen, business was rendered impossible from the crowds which committed suicide in the soup.

The lack of firewood was met by using oil; when, later, we had to economise in that commodity, it was supplemented by collecting dried manure. The natives use brushwood or anything they can pick up; their manner of cooking, which is after Polynesian fashion by heating stones placed in the earth, requires very little fuel. The water difficulty was ever present. At the Mataveri establishment the supply collected from the roof was generally sufficient; we arrived, however, in a dry spell, and one morning the request for water was met by the information that the “tank was empty”; even Mana, one felt, had never fallen quite so low. It was consoling to be informed that “clothes could always be washed in the crater,” a climb of 1,300 feet. At our Raraku camp all the water, except that which could be collected on the roof of a tin hut, had to be fetched from the crater lake; this rendered us tiresomely dependent on getting native labour. The rain-clouds are often intercepted by the high grounds at the south-western end of the island, in a manner which is most tantalising to the dweller in the eastern, if supplies happen to be low.

The ranch supported at this time about 12,000 sheep, 2,000 head of cattle, and other livestock; we were generously supplied with milk and could purchase any quantity of mutton: beef was not often killed for so small a party. Chickens of a lean species were sometimes available. Mana later brought Mr. Edmunds some turkeys which did well. Bananas were useful, when in season. Fig-trees thrive, and we had a lavish and most acceptable supply at Raraku of this fruit from those planted by the natives prior to their removal to Hanga Roa. Vegetables were scarce, as the Manager took no interest in his garden, owing to the depredations of the natives, and we had no time for their cultivation. Groceries had, of course, been brought with us, and on our arrival they were deposited in the locked and strongly built wool-shed at Hanga Piko, a small boat landing between Hanga Roa and Mataveri. Housekeeping was a much easier business than on the yacht, but S.’s share of practical work was considerably greater, for, beside the initial camp-pitching, all tent or kitchen gear that went wrong and every lamp which would not burn made demands on his time. In his department also came the stud; we had been kindly provided with some of the island ponies, of which there are about five hundred; as export is impossible, the value of each animal is put at 5s. When not in use the steeds were put out to graze as best they might; and in addition to the care of the saddlery, every tethering rope which chafed through against the stones was brought for repair to the head of the Expedition. In judging of scientific work under such conditions, it must always be borne in mind how many hours and days are thus inevitably consumed in practical labour.

There was, luckily for us, the one skilled workman on the island, the French carpenter who had made his way from New Caledonia; his name was Vincent, but he answered to the appellation of “Varta” (the figure in fig. 37); the difficulty was to obtain his services as he was constantly employed on the estate. One of our few retainers, Mahanga (fig. 89), was not a native of Easter, but had come from the Paumotu Islands; he served faithfully for many months, the goal in view being the possession of one of the tin huts, which passed into his keeping when we left the island. It was related that having been at one time afflicted with some skin disease, he had taken the heroic remedy of plunging into a vat in which the sheep were being dipped, with painful but beneficial results. The native girls make quite tolerable servants, and I was fortunate in never being without one (fig. 29). They take a keen interest in their own clothes and some of them are surprisingly good needlewomen; in some of the houses there are even sewing-machines. But to obtain labour, whether for camp work or excavation, was always difficult, and for a while circumstances rendered it almost impossible.

It was stated a little while back that we were left on the island with statues and natives. The statues remained quiescent, the natives did not. The inhabitants, or Kanakas to give them their usual name^[13] (fig. 26), are on the whole a handsome race, though their voices, particularly those of the women, are very harsh. They are fortunate also in possessing attractive manners, from which they get the full benefit in their intercourse with passing ships. The older people we found always kind and amiable, but the younger men have a high opinion of their own merits, and are often difficult to deal with. Their general morality, using the word in its limited sense, is, in common with that of all Polynesians, of a particularly low order; it is true that the Europeans with whom they have come into contact did not initiate this condition, but they have seldom done anything to show that that of their own lands is in any way higher; a fact which should be remembered when complaint is made that Kanakas “have no respect for white men.” The native love of accuracy also leaves a good deal to be desired, and their lies are astonishingly fluent; but lack of truthfulness is scarcely confined to Kanakas. In common with all residents in the South Seas, or indeed elsewhere, they exert themselves no more than is necessary to supply their wants; unfortunately these, save in the matter of clothes, have scarcely increased since pre-Christian days. The food-supply of sweet potatoes and bananas, with a few pigs and fowls, can be obtained with a minimum of labour; the keeping of sheep and cattle is not permitted by the Company, owing to the impossibility of discovering or tracing theft. Their old huts, which were made with sticks and grass, have been replaced by small houses of wood or stone, but, except in a few cases, there is no furniture, and the inhabitants continue to sleep on the floor, in company with hens, which freely run in and out (fig. 27). There seems no desire to improve their condition; “Kanakas no like work, Kanakas like sit in house,” was the ingenuous reply given by one of them, when my husband pointed out the good results which would accrue from planting some trees in village territory.

Perhaps the greatest barrier to native progress lies in the absence of security of property; they steal freely from one another, as well as from white men, so that all individual effort is rendered nugatory. At the same time they are curiously lacking in pugnacity, and if detected in theft quietly desist or return the property: as a typical instance our cook once met a man wearing one of his, Bailey’s, ties; he looked steadily at him, the man’s hand went up, he took off the tie and handed it back. Their own native organisation was peculiarly lax, no kind of justice being administered, and they have never had for any duration the civilising effect of religious instruction or civil power. The missionaries were replaced by a native lay reader; there is a large church where services are regularly held, which form important functions for the display of best clothes, but it is difficult to say how much they convey to the worshippers. The older ones, at any rate, have two names, both a native and Christian appellation. Mr. Edmunds had, on our arrival, the status of a Chilean official, and was both just and kind in his dealings, but he had no means of enforcing order; the two policemen who had been at one time on the island had been withdrawn owing to their own bad conduct. The marvel is not that the Kanakas are troublesome, but that they are as good as they are.

We had heard in Chile rumours of native unrest, owing to the action of a white man, who had been for a short while on the island, and who had done his best to undermine the authority of the Manager. We had before long unpleasant evidence that they were out of hand. The wool-shed, which contained our minutely calculated stores, was broken into, and a quantity of things stolen, the most lamented being three-fourths of the stock of soap; no redress or punishment was possible. On June 30th, while we were still at the Manager’s, a curious development began which turned the history of the next five weeks into a Gilbertian opera—a play, however, with an undercurrent of reality which made the time the most anxious in the story of the Expedition. On that date a semi-crippled old woman, named Angata (fig. 30), came up to the Manager’s house accompanied by two men, and informed him that she had had a dream from God, according to which M. Merlet, the chairman of the Company, was “no more,” and the island belonged to the Kanakas, who were to take the cattle and have a feast the following day.^[14] Our party also was to be laid under contribution, which, it later transpired, was to take the form of my clothes. Later in the day the following declaration of war was formally handed in to Mr. Edmunds, written in Spanish as spoken on the island: