1774 Visited by the English under Cook. 1786 Visited by the French under La Pérouse. Receives occasional visits from passing ships. 1862 Dec. Peruvian slave-raiders carry off many inhabitants. 1864 Jan. Arrival of first missionary from Valparaiso. 1867 Commercial exploitation begins—arrival of M. Dutrou Bornier (_cir._) from Tahiti. 1868 Visit of H.M.S. _Topaze_—removal of statues now in British Museum. 1888 Visit of U.S.A. warship _Mohican_. 1888 Chilean Government takes possession. 1897 Mr. Merlet of Valparaiso leases the greater part of the island, and subsequently forms a company for the “Exploitation of Easter Island.” _For further historical details, see below_, pp. 200–10. Easter Island at last! It was in the misty dawn of Sunday, March 29th, 1914, that we first saw our destination, just one week in the year earlier than the Easter Day it was sighted by Roggeveen and his company of Dutchmen. We had been twenty days at sea since leaving Juan Fernandez, giving a wide berth to the few dangerous rocks which constitute Salo-y-Gomez and steering directly into the sunset. It was thirteen months since we had left Southampton, out of which time we had been 147 days under way, and here at last was our goal. As we approached the southern coast we gazed in almost awed silence at the long grey mass of land, broken into three great curves, and diversified by giant molehills (fig. 23). The whole looked an alarmingly big land in which to find hidden caves. The hush was broken by the despairing voice of Bailey, the ship’s cook. “I don’t know how I am to make a fire on that island, there is no wood!” He spoke the truth; not a vestige of timber or even brushwood was to be seen. We swung round the western headland with its group of islets and dropped anchor in Cook’s Bay. A few hundred yards from the shore is the village of Hanga Roa, the native name for Cook’s Bay. This is the only part of the island which is inhabited, the two hundred and fifty natives, all that remain of the population, having, been gathered together here in order to secure the safety of the livestock, to which the rest of the island is devoted. The yacht was soon surrounded by six or seven boat-loads of natives, clad in nondescript European garments, but wearing a head-covering of native straw, somewhat resembling in appearance the high hat of civilisation (fig. 83).