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. Tour 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 
being 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 miles, 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 
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