180 MYSTIC ISLES 



we were in latitude 27° 8' south. Easter Island is 27° 

 10' south. And now we began to fear that we might 

 run past Easter Island. If we did, we knew we could 

 never get back with the wind. We had squall after 

 squall now, but we felt sure that soon we must see land. 

 Our soup was all gone, and we were living on the soda 

 crackers mixed with water and milk. Each of us got 

 a cupful of this stuff once a day. 



"On the twenty-second, when we were nine days out, 

 I saw the land at ten o'clock in the morning, thirty miles 

 away. We felt pretty good over that, and had two cup- 

 fuls of the mixture, because we felt we were nearly safe. 

 My God ! what we felt when we saw the rise of that land ! 

 The captain said it was Easter Island for certain, but 

 that it was not a place that any merchant ships ever 

 went, as there was no trade there. Once we saw the 

 land we could not get any nearer to it. We tried to 

 row toward it, but the wind was against us. Two days 

 we hung about the back of that island, just outside the 

 line of breakers. We were afraid to risk a landing, for 

 the coast was rocky. On the eleventh day we saw a 

 spot where the rocks looked white, and we rowed in to- 

 ward it with great pains and much fear. A big sea 

 threw us right upon a smooth boulder, and we leaped 

 from the boat and tried to run ashore. We were weak 

 and fell down many times. Finally we got a hold and 

 we carried everything out of the boat, and after hours 

 hauled it up out of reach of the breakers. 



"There was a cliff that went right up straight from 

 the rocks, and we could not climb it, we were so weak 

 from hunger and the cramped position we had had to 

 keep in the boat. We laid down a while, and then it 



