INTRODUCTION. 



Rapanui, a tiny islet, is almost over the verge of a distant sea, the 

 scanty stepmother-home of less than a battalion of humankind far 

 sundered from the folk of its own race. That would be enough in 

 itself to attract the attention of the student of the unconsidered back- 

 waters and eddies of the currents of human progress. Once attracted, 

 the attention is chained by the problems offered by this remote and 

 arid speck of land. 



It may not be the purpose of this work to study all of these prob- 

 lems that is beyond our power. Of the most of these mysteries we 

 may venture no further than to state the existence. Restricted by 

 the nature of the material with which we are to deal and conditioned 

 by the character of our particular research into the mystery of the 

 Polynesian race, we shall find sufficient to engage our attention in the 

 statement of but one of these problems and in massing such proof as 

 we may direct upon its settlement. Yet it will be proper to set forth 

 the other and older problems in some such order as in a general way 

 comports with the order in which they have come to European atten- 

 tion. This is all the more meet since the problem to which this volume 

 is addressed is newly discovered; its first presentation was made as 

 incidental to those studies of the most remote Pacific area which were 

 the theme of "The Polynesian Wanderings." 



i. The discovery of this rock set in the emptiness of sea is obscure. 

 It is credited to Roggeween and his Dutch fleet on Easter Day, April 6, 

 1722, whence the name upon the charts. There are discrepancies 

 in his narrative, at least in the mutilated state in which alone it is 

 available to modern study. Not in every detail may his record be 

 reconciled with the physical and other facts of the island itself. Yet in 

 the main our best authorities in geography accord him the credit of the 

 discovery of this island. But before him in these seas was Davis the 

 buccaneer. Something he found in 1686 in those seas so empty be- 

 tween the Paumotu and the coast of Peru. The Spaniards (proud, 

 and with reason, of the great admiral of the viceroyalty) have assigned 

 the credit to Alvaro Mendana in 1566. It may well be so, for Spanish 

 discovery was in those stirring times an art and mystery by no means 

 to be revealed by publication on charts which any shipman might 

 secure, lest the English sea-rover should discover more than it was 

 wholesome for him to know. 



2. We have no sure knowledge of the name of this molecule of land. 

 By those who follow the proper principle of geographical nomenclature 

 in preserving the indigenous name wherever feasible the designation 



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