130. A TAHITIAN PICTURE POST-CARD 319 131. MARAE MAHAIATEA, TAHITI 320 132. CHARLES AND EDWIN YOUNG 321 133. HEIAU PUUKOHOLA, HAWAII 327 134. SAN FRANCISCO 331 MAPS AND PLANS MAGELLAN STRAITS AND PATAGONIAN CHANNELS 65 MANA INLET (FIG. 13) 85 EASTER ISLAND (PHYSICAL) 120A PLAN OF RANO RARAKU (FIG. 44) 174C EASTER ISLAND, ANCIENT ROADS (FIG. 74) 194 EASTER ISLAND (POLITICAL) (FIG. 91) 222 THE PACIFIC OCEAN 293 PANAMA 359 JAMAICA; CUBA AND BAHAMA ISLANDS 372 BERMUDA ISLANDS 378 PART I _THE VOYAGE TO EASTER ISLAND_ [Illustration: FIG. 1. _MANA._ Charrua Bay, Patagonian Channels. ] CHAPTER I THE START Why we went to Easter Island—The Building and Equipping of the Yacht—The Start from Southampton—Dartmouth—Falmouth. “All the seashore is lined with numbers of stone idols, with their backs turned towards the sea, which caused us no little wonder, because we saw no tool of any kind for working these figures.” So wrote, a century and a half ago, one of the earliest navigators to visit the Island of Easter in the South-east Pacific. Ever since that day passing ships have found it incomprehensible that a few hundred natives should have been able to make, move, and erect numbers of great stone monuments, some of which are over thirty feet in height; they have marvelled and passed on. As the world’s traffic has increased Easter Island has still stood outside its routes, quiet and remote, with its story undeciphered. What were these statues of which the present inhabitants know nothing? Were they made by their ancestors in forgotten times or by an earlier race? Whence came the people who reached this remote spot? Did they arrive from South America, 2,000 miles to the eastward? Or did they sail against the prevailing wind from the distant islands to the west? It has even been conjectured that Easter Island is all that remains of a sunken continent. Fifty years ago the problem was increased by the discovery on this mysterious land of wooden tablets bearing an unknown script; they too have refused to yield their secret.