OF THE SOUTH SEAS 181 



was decided that the first and second mates should have 

 a good feed and try to get up the precipice. We were 

 taking risks, because we had very little grub left. It 

 was about a hundred feet up, and we watched them 

 closely as they went slowly up. They did not come 

 back, and we were much afraid of what they might find. 

 We did not know but there might be savages there. 

 During the day the other sailors also got up, leaving 

 the old man and me to watch the boat. 



"Help arrived for us. The mates had walked all 

 night, and at daybreak they reached the house of the 

 head man, employed by the owner of Easter Island. It 

 was a sheep and horse island. The mates were fed, and 

 then they went on to the house of the manager. Horses 

 were gotten out, and bananas and poi sent to us. The 

 water just came in time, because we were all out. They 

 brought horses for all of us then, and after we had 

 started the people of the island went ahead and came 

 back with water and milk, which did us a world of good. 

 At the house of the governor we had a mess of brown 

 beans, and then we all fell asleep on the floor. God 

 knows how long we slept, but when we waked up we 

 were like wolves again. We then had beans with fresh 

 killed mutton, and that made us all deathly sick be- 

 cause our stomachs were weak." 



Underneath us, while the red-cheeked and golden- 

 haired Steve uttered his puzzling sentences in English, 

 I heard from time to time the heavy tread of Captain 

 Benson. He was, doubtless, living over again the hours 

 of terror and resolution on the El Dorado and in the 

 boat, and seeking to find words to amplify his log by 



