EASTER ISLAND AND THE MARQUESAS 149 



Cook a basket of bananas of which the bottom 

 was filled with pebbles. 



After a very short stay in this curious but 

 barren place, Cook set out for the Marquesas. 

 On April 6th and 7th the travellers saw four 

 islands which they recognised as those which the 

 Spaniard Mendana had discovered, and which 

 he called the Marquesas Islands. A fifth was 

 added to the group by Cook, and named by him 

 Hood Island, after the young officer who had 

 seen it first. 



As soon as the ship was at anchor in a bay of 

 Saint Christine Island, barter began with the 

 islanders, who proved as barefaced thieves as 

 their brothers in other parts of the Pacific. One 

 of them, who had come on board and carried 

 off an iron candlestick, was killed by a shot, in 

 spite of Cook's orders. This incident made com- 

 merce difficult. Nevertheless, the Resolution 

 was able to lay in bananas, bread-fruit, yams, 

 coconuts and little pigs. 



Cook's principal object in visiting the Mar- 

 quesas was to fix their position exactly on the 

 chart, which had not hitherto been done. He set 

 to work, therefore, and, with the naturalists, 

 visited the interior, more smiling and fertile than 

 Easter Island, but far from possessing the splen- 

 did vegetation of the Society Islands. 



On the other hand, the islanders were a mag- 



