Pacific in the seventeenth and eighteenth century sailors preferred to remain behind on some small island and spend the rest of their lives there with the natives and the fine weather and the long days of lazy ease. Five of Roggeveen's crew remained behind on one of those islands, and when in the year 1764 the British explored the King George Archipelago, they actually found one of these five, then a very old man. [Illustration] More than half a year was spent by Roggeveen in exploring the hundreds of islands and the many groups of larger islands which the industrious coral insect had built upon the bottom of the ocean. He found the Samoan Islands, and visited several of the Fiji group. Everywhere he met with the same sort of natives. How they got there was a puzzle to Roggeveen. They must have come from some large continent, and he intended to find that continent. But time went by, and his supplies dwindled away, and he did not see anything that resembled his famous continent. Whenever a new peak appeared upon the horizon, there was hope of reaching the land of promise. But from near by the peak always proved to be another rock sticking out of a placid sea, and giving shelter to a few thousand naked savages. Roggeveen did not stop his search until his men began to get sick and until he had eaten his last piece of bread. Finally, when two-thirds of the crew had died, he considered himself beaten in his search, and after visiting New Guinea he went to the Indies. This expedition, the last one to sail forth to find the land of Ophir of the Old Testament, was a failure. We have been obliged to make the same observation about many of the other voyages which we have described in this little book. It is true they added some positive knowledge to the map. They located new islands and described rivers and reefs and currents and the velocity or absence of wind in distant parts of the Pacific Ocean; but they always cost the lives of many people, and they ruined the investors in a most cruel fashion. Yet they had one great advantage: They forced people to leave their comfortable homes. They made them go forth and search for things about which they had had expectant visions. To the rest of the world they gave the tangible sign that in this little Dutch corner of the North Sea there lived a people of enterprise and courage who, although very rich, could yet see beyond mere material gain. And what more can we ask? * * * * *