The German concentration was complete; it had been carried through with very considerable skill aided by no less considerable luck. The few inhabitants of the lonely Easter Island, remote from trade routes, cables, and newspapers, regarded the German squadron with complete indifference. They had heard nothing of the world war, and were not interested in foreign warships. The island is rich in archæological remains. There happened to be upon it a British scientific expedition, but, busied over the relics of the past, the single-minded men of science did not take the trouble to cross the island to look at the German ships. They also were happy in their lack of knowledge that a war was on. [Illustration: THE PACIFIC: VON SPEE’S CONCENTRATION.] I have anticipated events a little in order to make clear what was happening on the other side of the great spur of South America while Admiral Stoddart’s squadron was taking charge of the Brazilian, Uruguayan, and upper Argentine coasts, and Admiral Cradock, with the _Good Hope_, _Glasgow_, _Monmouth_, and _Otranto_—followed by the battleship _Canopus_—were pressing to the south after the _Dresden_. Stoddart’s little lot had been swept up from regions remote from their present concentration. The _Carnarvon_ had come from St. Vincent, the _Defence_ from the Mediterranean, where she had been Troubridge’s flagship in the early days of the war; the _Kent_ had been sent out from England, and the _Cornwall_ summoned from the West Coast of Africa. The _Bristol_, as we know, was from the West Indies and her fruitless hunt for the elusive _Karlsruhe_. The South Atlantic was now in possession of two considerable British squadrons, although two months earlier there had been nothing of ours carrying guns except the little _Glasgow_. After the news arrived from the _Ortega_ about the _Dresden’s_ movements, Cradock took his ships down to Punta Arenas, and thence across to Port Stanley, in the Falkland Islands, where he was joined by the _Canopus_, a slow old ship of some thirteen to fourteen knots, which had straggled down to him. I have never been able to reconcile the choice of the old _Canopus_, despite her formidable 12-inch guns, with my sense of what was fitting for the pursuit and destruction of German cruisers with a squadron speed of some twenty-one knots. From Port Stanley the _Glasgow_ and _Monmouth_ were despatched round the Horn upon a scouting expedition which was to extend as far as Valparaiso. Already the Southern Squadron was beginning to suffer from its remoteness from the original Pirates’ Lair of the _Glasgow_. The Northern Squadron, collected from the corners of the earth, were receiving the supply ships first and skimming the cream off their cargoes before letting them loose for the service of their brethren in arms to the south. It was all very natural and inevitable, but rather irritating for those who had now to make the best of the knuckle end of the Admiralty’s joints.