EASTER ISLAND.

Press, Volume XIV, Issue 1888, 4 May 1869, Page 3

EASTER ISLAND.

[From the "Pall Mall Gazette."] ! _PHe extract from the letter of an officer cruising in the 7 South jpacific gives an account, which, though short, isbf some interest, of one of the islands' and its inhabitants mentioned by Captain Cook:-— ; We left where the country, considering it is in Peru, is wonderfully, well cultivated, and sailed for Easter Island on October 22. The distance is over 2,000 miles. "We had a good passage, making about 215 miles: a day, and anchored November.!, in lat. 27.10, lon. 109.30. The island is one of the most curious in the Pacific, and is; I believe, with the exception of Pitcairn Island, 1,500 miles from any inhabited land. It is about thirteen miles by ten in its. widest part, and is exceedingly volcanic. It contains a great number of craters; one of them is a splendid specimen, fully 600 fe'ot in ' depth, and the width at the bottom about 4,000 feet. The view of the interior is very grand, one side being "opened tpwards the sea in a perfect semicircle. The place has hardly been visited by since- Captain Cook spoke of-it, and as he was ill during, hisAvisit i there, the account given by him was necessarily meagre. But the ptedple had a bad reputation \ fbrcannibaliski, and this caused traders, and even whalers, to give them a wide! berth. The inhabitants now "number about 900, but they are fast dying out of consumption, want of proper food ; ia fact, they are not very far from £ttoafci6_i. _ About four years ago some; iTjjerMviaix ships came here and kidnapped 1,800 of them, and this }&% great measure accounts for their

I wnetched condition, as the children, women, &c, left could not cultivate the j larid even in the very moderate degree ! which tho n'ion are able to do. Two , of j the .kidnappers were afterwards, cabght by some of the people, who m£de short work of them 4 in fact, killed and ate them up—a fate not entirely undeserved. These islanders speak almost exactly' the same language as the Marquesans, but are/ as a Tule much less robust. The old men are apparently much thestrongest, some of them being really powerful-looking fellows. You will remember that Captain Cook alludes to the large Stone images lie saw here. Bearing this in mind, We organised a search and had a great success. "We found at least 150, and no doubt there are many more, for our time was limited, though we made the most ot\ it. Some of them are enormous, over thirty feet high by nine wide.: I saw one twenty-two feet long and fourteen wide. They appear to have been cut or carved with stone chisels, and it is believed that they rare" th§ worlp of a former race, now perhaps extinct. Atf any rate, it is very strange to find such remains on an island' so entirely isolated,- inhabited ..only by savages;, who are,, apparently,,quite, unable to conceive the idea, of, making anything of the sort. "We have got two of the smallest images on board, and I suppose they will' be Bent to the British Museum* Most of them have been thrown down on their faces, and,so remain;..but..-in_Jbhe side of_the crater of a large volcano on the fiic end of the island there are sixteen, all standing l upright j outside, the .crater there are also a number of others in the same position. This desolate crater, guarded as it Were within and without % these hideous, still stone men, is a spectacle almost worth the voyage. It is clear that once the place must have been densely some of these images weigh between twenty and thirty tons, and besides the quantity of work in carving them, it must have been immense labor and have required a great force of strength to carry, them, for milesjover a rugged and difficult country, and rear them upright where they now stand-; Perhaps at; one time they may have .had a king or chicf J who employed his people thus-in order to prevent them fightings and eating each other. We found the islanders, however, gentle and honest, and to all appearance much pleased to see us. 'But there are three Catholic- priests settled hero,.-two, Frenchmen and a Prussian, and they: nuist have done a world of good,_and/ have certainly got the people quite Under control:' They'have taken their dpears- and clubs from them-, but find them lazy andmnwilling to work well at cultivating the ground. These savages are in great fear and awe of the priests, which is, perhaps, very necessary to the safety of these gentlemen, is they are boru caanibals; and therein no saying' when their ;^nay! 'fclpt 1 Meal- but. '■■[ :The ''$**$ P 1 three years agp.^As;; Soon as he landed he„was robbed, and to have been killed, and eaten* but the chief interfered, and chose- to have him for his slave,, ■; EOS some time he worked in that capacity, and mpre than once his life was ! but he managed to escape on ; each occasion. I The next who dame was the * senio-* priest, a -EreUehman, 'and a most re_.olutelo6king : fean, with a; very pbtver- : j ful and deterniined. ; qast of ..pliysiog-. nomy. The .moment he ; landed they Crowded down * and ; endeavoured to stone him, but he got near them and struck the first fellow ; he - came ; across Sucfe a-ib-QW with, his walking,stafF as to stuiiihimiTon the apot* then walked unmolested through the crowd of swarming savages now thoroughly cowed, and since then he has never but once been molested, bufc.hasjhenx well in. hand on the.' wjhple- Of course the first thinghedidwaato procure the liberation of the otheuvpriest, and the two have impressed tin the minds of the people the idea that if they kill and eat either one or the other a ship will come and destroy them; These poor missionaries. Jinufefc i lead ikJiard; and;trying life, and. certainly exhibit great bravery and devotion to 'their religidn: 1 J " There isjno sopiety ( which acts in- Erance as the English dp, to their n-issionariefiii and no one sends them" comforts, or food; or £ "We did all we could for them, for which they appeared molt 7gratßful, and were.; pnly .too thankful to have the .opportunity of writing to their friends and sending letters by our ship; ; <All ; ths trees io the island ; kre : destroyed;-^bne :r war party would, burn ithe trees belonging to the ;Othe% < the ; other retaliated in kind, and they slew and devoured' all prisoners.; 7The priests/say they were much more numerous at one time, but • are dying opt; fast, and r cannot last long at the present rate. They are forbidden by the missionaries to practise spe__r-thiowirigin Order tp prevent I fighting and; bat-; we ! were away frota \tiie * yssgs wft]h' &om 1 of them we 'cut them some sticks badly j balanced *nd : -not very" straight, and tney threw them with wofioWiri-skiU

and strength. I never before knew how dangerous a weapon a spenr could be, but these people so armed would lie formidable adversaries; they cast: them almost underhanded, with the hand below the level of the shoulder, and even with these sticks could strike an object with great force and accuracy up to seventy yards at the least j with a good spear of course they could do much more, in fact they* quitei astonished us. It appears they u§ed to tip their spears with sharp*pointed! pieces of volcanic darts or bolts. Their house's 'are built to this day exactly I as Captain Cpok describes them ; ; the | shape is like a' boat .turned over keel uppermost, with a small; sqnare hole; J at the side for the door, through which \ a man can just crawl, ano> the entire fabric is composed of coarse reeds. At' the top of the crater, 1 almost on the edge of the cliff, there are a lot of -curious stone huts, about five feet high anside, and some of them fifteen feet 7 long. The entrance is through the (wall,, which, is about seven feet thick, so it is a long narrow hole to crawl through- in ■ border, to get within. 'Jhe. islanders themselves say that their .ancestors? came over here in -They have a tradition that the first king, Toko, came; from the.' island of. Kappa, where the New Zealand steamers -stop, (this meant: Little ttappa), and the first land they -came to was thisAisland, Binding:it larger! than the one they had left, they called it which means Big Bappa, 'King Toto, as soon as he had landed; began tocafye7the imagesl j[_~sh"d' _ when he had firii ~hed '■ his work, 'the statues all;walked down, and placed themselves in the position they now occupy. After this he turned into a butterfly, arid th,e children,.evennow, .wfyen they chase a butterfly, say they are chasing Iting Toko. ; The stone huts at the top of the cratiir are stated to have bjeen constructed for the special use of Toko, and the image we have on board was found in one of them. We had to dig it out, for it was sunt so far into the ground that only rthe head and. shoulders were visible. They say t(ie way they chose their langs was this: The man who could in a given tinie produce the greatest number of sea-bird's eggs was made king, on account of his superior courage and activity! Even now the natives are fond of going over the cliff in search of eggs, and many, lose their lives in this "amusement, for the sides are rugged anb! precipitous; and are in -sortie places near 1000 feet in height.. We found the climate warm, but very healthy. On board S.M.'ship