Rapa : the Forgotten . 
R APA is a lonely spot. You can get a fair 
idea of its position by taking a chart of 
the South Pacific and, starting from Brisbane, 
in the colony of Queensland, run a line due 
east for 3,600 miles. For the first 2,400 miles 
of that distance a ship will sight nothing, 
except, perhaps, the breaking surf on the 
dangerous Haymet Rocks ; then, still another 
thousand miles to the east, a lofty, cloud- 
capped, and many-peaked island rises from 
the sea ; this is Rapa. 
Thirty-two years ago there was a line of mail 
steamers running between Sydney and Panama, 
and those who travelled by them were afforded 
a more than passing glimpse of one of the most 
interesting and beautiful islands of the South 
Seas ; for at Rapa the steamers stopped to coal, 
