The mystery of Easter island: the story of an expedition

by Katherine Routledge

We also visited the famous Pali, the site of a great battle at the time of the conquest of the island by Kaméhaméha, chief of Hawaii. A range of mountains runs along the eastern side of the island. The visitor, approaching from the west, rises gradually till he reaches the summit, and is then confronted by a sheer drop of many hundreds of feet down to the coast below.

The cliff extends for many miles, and the views over land and sea are most striking. During the invasion, the Hawaiian army pursued the natives up the slope, and drove them headlong over the Pali, or precipice. Kaméhaméha is the national hero; when a statue was erected in Honolulu, to commemorate the centenary of the discovery of the island by Cook, it was dedicated, not to the navigator, but to the Hawaiian chief.

We were accorded an interview with the ex-queen Liliuokalani. It was a distinctly formal occasion. We were shown into a waiting-room till some previous arrivals had finished their audience, and were then ceremoniously introduced to royalty. The room was furnished after European fashion, but was adorned with feather ornaments. The old lady, who had a tattoo mark on her cheek, sat with quiet dignity in an arm-chair. She was obviously frail, and though she spoke occasionally in good English, her secretary did most of the conversation. She told us that her brother had caused certain native legends and songs to be written down, and she herself, during her imprisonment in 1895, had translated into English an Hawaiian account of the creation of the world. The secretary presented us with a copy of this book. We did not gather that either of them had ever heard of Easter Island. After a short time we took our leave, curtseying again and backing out as we had seen done by our predecessors. It may be remembered that Liliuokalani visited England at the time of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. Since our return we have seen the announcement of her death; so closes the list of the Hawaiian sovereigns.

Being in harbour brought the not unknown domestic excitements. The pugilistic American cook, who had been quite satisfactory on the voyage, proved to be one of those who cannot be in port without going “on the bust.” He was rescued once, but he shortly afterwards asked for shore leave at 10 o’clock in the morning. This was naturally declined; he then said he wanted to have a tooth out. S. assured him he was quite capable of officiating. Finding he could get neither leave, money, nor a boat, he sprang overboard, and swam ashore in his clothes. His place was taken by a Japanese cook from Honolulu.

Hawaii.—When the repairs to the engine had been accomplished, we sent the yacht ahead to San Francisco, and ourselves made a trip by steamer from the island of Oahu to that of Hawaii. Between the two lies the island of Molokai, on which is the leper settlement, connected with Father Damien’s heroic work and death. We did not see the settlement itself, but from its photographs it seems an attractive collection of small houses, in the midst of wonderfully beautiful scenery.

The principal sight on Hawaii is the active crater of Kilauea. Instead of the long ride described by Lady Brassey, visitors, landing at the port of Hilo, are now conveyed in motors to a comfortable hotel, on the edge of the crater. We made a detour on the way to see a genuine native settlement, where the standard of living proved to be much the same as on Easter. The crater itself is a subsidiary one on the side of the great mountain, Mauna Loa; it is 4,000 feet above sea-level, and has a circuit of nearly eight miles. The greater part of the crater is extinct, and its hardened lava can easily be walked over, but one portion is still active, and forms a boiling lake about a thousand feet across. No photograph gives any idea of the impressiveness of the scene, particularly after dark. The floor of the pit is paved with dark but iridescent lava, across which run irregular and ever-varying cracks of glowing gold. First one of these cracks, and then another, bubbles out into a roaring fire, the heat melts the adjacent lava, causing great dark masses to break off and slip into the furnace, where they are devoured by the flames. It is a fascinating spectacle which could be watched for hours. The floor of the pit rises and sinks; when we were there it was some hundreds of feet below the spectator.

Kilauea was considered in olden times to be the special abode of Pele, the goddess of fire; but after the advent of the missionaries, her power was formally defied by Kapiolani, the daughter of a chief who ate the berries consecrated to the deity on the brink of the pit. More than fifty years later, however, in 1880, there was so great an eruption of lava on the other side of Mauna Loa that native royalty had to beseech Pele to stifle her anger and save the people; a prayer which was, it is said, immediately effective.

We decided not to return to Hilo, but to see something more of the island, and catch the steamer at Kawaihae on the western side. We left the hotel at 8 a.m. and motored over a hundred miles, first passing through grass lands and cattle ranches, and then through sugar plantations. The way was diversified by extraordinary flows of lava, through which the road had been cleared: they extended for miles like a great sea; one of the streams was as recent as 1907. The last stage of the drive was through forest growth and coffee plantations. We spent the night at a small hotel, kept by a lady. An interesting fellow-guest was a government entymologist, who was combating a parasite which was injuring the coffee; to this end he had introduced an enemy beast of the same nature brought from Nigeria, which was successfully devouring its natural foe.

Below the hotel was the Bay of Kealekakua, which was the scene of the last great drama in the life of Cook. On its shore are the remains of the building where he was treated as the incarnation of the god Loro. It is now only a mass of stones, but is said to have been a truncated pyramid, which is an old form of heiau. On the top of this temple Cook was robed in red tapa, offered a hog, and otherwise worshipped. The conduct of the white men, however, was such that they soon lost the respect of the natives. An affray occurred over the stealing of one of the ship’s boats, and Cook was stabbed in the back by one of the iron daggers which he had himself given in barter. An obelisk has been erected to his memory.