■EASTER ISLAND 529 



lay hands upon, taking them off to the guano diggings on 

 the Chincha Islands, where the greater number of them 

 perished. The following year a Jesuit missionary was 

 sent from Tahiti with lay helpers, whose efforts in civilis- 

 ing the natives were completely successful. The task 

 was rendered easy by the amiable disposition of the 

 latter, who appear to have had few vices except immorality 

 and a propensity for petty theft. Their numbers, how- 

 ever, were becoming so rapidly reduced that it was 

 thought advisable to send some of them to Tahiti, and 

 about 500 accordingly left in 1874. Four years later 

 the missionaries left, taking with them 300 more, and 

 establishing them on the Gambier group, the island having 

 been purchased by Messrs. Salmon and Brander of Tahiti, 

 to be converted into a stock farm. In 1891 there were 

 only about 100 natives left. They are described as 

 l)eing a remarkably fine -looking people, and are all 

 Christians. They are without a priest, but read prayer 

 among themselves regularly in their small chapel. 

 Sweet potato, taro, and sugar-cane are grown, but no 

 species of grain. Bananas are cultivated in a most 

 singular manner, great pits of 20 to 30 feet deep being- 

 dug and lined with masonry and the bananas planted 

 within, so as to be sheltered from the wind. According 

 to a recent writer there are on the island no less than 

 18,000 cattle, 20,000 sheep, and 70 horses, all belonging 

 to the Tahitian firm above mentioned, but as the island 

 only contains 45 square mUes, these figures are most 

 probably erroneous. 



Easter Island is celebrated for its wonderful remains 

 of some prehistoric people, consisting of stone houses, 

 sculptured stones, and colossal stone images. Of these, 

 various writers, from Cook and La Perouse, have given 

 accounts, but one of the fullest and most recent is that 



2 M 



