NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE 163 



The island looked very uninviting from the open roadstead. 

 It was no more than a rocky waste. Yet it proved one of our 

 most interesting visits. This tiny, isolated speck in the ocean 

 presents a great challenge to the archaeologist. It lies two thou- 

 sand miles from the nearest mainland, and more than a thousand 

 from its nearest island neighbor. Yet there is undeniable evi- 

 dence that thousands of people once lived on these treeless, almost 

 sterile lava-plains. Today only about three hundred apathetic 

 natives with their domestic animals manage to scratch for a living 

 between the boulders, in soil that will not even grow the coconut. 

 Furthermore, water is scarce, for the coarse volcanic soil is so 

 porous that the forty-inch rainfall is lost at once. They water 

 their flocks and wash their cloths only from brackish springs along 

 the beach at low-tide, and from the crater-lakes high up in the 

 volcanoes. 



To make the picture even blacker, the sea is almost devoid of 

 life in this region, and because the island is not surrounded by 

 shallow waters, the villagers cannot expect to subsist on shellfish 

 or slugs. How is it possible that this inhospitable tiny island once 

 produced the surplus leisure and labor necessary to build some of 

 the most stupendous memorial architecture in the world's his- 

 tory ? 



Easter Island, or Rapa Nui ("Big Dancing Paddle") is situated 

 in the South Pacific Ocean at 27° south and 109° west. It is 

 about midway between Coquimbo, in Chile, and Tahiti. The 

 nearest island is the uninhabited Ducie (over a thousand miles 

 away), except for the rocks of Sala y Gomez, which lie to the east. 

 The area of Easter Island is forty square miles. It is roughly 

 triangular in shape, and consists of mountains and plains — gentle, 

 rolling contours except where the volcanoes are situated on the 

 coast. Here, there are bold cliffs. There are no true valleys, 

 formed by erosion; and there are no running streams. The cli- 

 mate is about ideal, with trade-winds blowing continuously from 

 October to April. 



But our attention was soon distracted from the island itself 

 to the swarm of nr.tive boats which had come out to greet us. 

 Some of them recognized us at once, since the Carnegie had called 



