All this time the German mate had been obliged, to his great annoyance, to keep sober for the sake of his own safety, but as they approached Juan Fernandez there was much anxiety on board, for no one was very sure where it was, and they wanted to see it without hitting it; by good luck it was fortunately sighted during the hours of daylight. They managed, somehow, to reach Valparaiso, and S. was at once taken to the same English hospital to which Mr. Corry had been removed. Here he lay for weeks, delighted to be well nursed and comfortable, and when convalescent, was most hospitably entertained by our friend Mr. Hope-Simpson, till he was equal to going down to Talcahuano to see after the yacht.

On February 20th, 1915, Mana, now duly insured, sallied forth once more, having lain at Talcahuano for nearly five months. Von Spee’s squadron had been annihilated off the Falkland Islands on December 8th, and though the exact whereabouts of his sole remaining ship, the Dresden, were still unknown, the coast was thought to be clear. As a matter of fact, the cruiser had crept out of her hiding-place in the Patagonian Channels sixteen days earlier, and was at this time not far from the entrance to the bay, where she was no doubt apprised by wireless from the shore of the movements of all shipping. Luckily the yacht’s departure was delayed at the last by some parting arrangements, and she left port some hours later than had been intended; in the interval, according to information subsequently received, another ship went by, the cruiser captured her and went off. Thus did Mana pass by in safety, and before she reached Easter Island the Dresden had met with her doom at Juan Fernandez.

March 15th was a joyful day, when the yacht at length turned up all safe and sound. We rapidly decided that the best thing we could do would be to let the British Representative in Chile know at once of the call of the Eitel Friedrich, and of the use made of the island by the Germans, more particularly as there were recent reports from more than one quarter that a vessel with two funnels had been seen off the island. A despatch was therefore written for our Minister at Santiago, and Mr. Gillam was instructed to hand it with a covering letter to the British Consul at Valparaiso. The enemy might turn up any day, and, in view of the gossip there had been about the yacht when they were here before, it was obviously desirable to maintain secrecy as to her whereabouts. No one save the Sailing-master, therefore, was informed of her destination; she lay for two nights off Hanga Roa, and on the third morning she was gone. On her arrival at Valparaiso the Consul requested Mr. Gillam to take the despatch himself to Santiago in order to answer any questions in his power; this he did, and had a long interview with the British Minister. We have subsequently received kind acknowledgment from the Admiralty of our efforts to be useful. The yacht then returned to the island,[[18]] where we had been doing last things, including finishing off our excavations, in which we were very kindly assisted by some of the remaining members of the French crew; they worked for us at a rate of pay refused by the natives. The packing-up of specimens alone was no light business. There had turned out to be much more work to be done on the island than we had anticipated, and though our residence had been prolonged far beyond the time originally contemplated, we had, from the scientific point of view, been largely single-handed and had also been hindered by circumstances. So far as research was concerned we would gladly have remained for another six months, to write up results and make good omissions; but England was at war, the three years our crew had signed on for would shortly expire, our wonderful time was over, and we must go.

CHAPTER XIII
PREHISTORIC REMAINS
AHU OR BURIAL-PLACES

Form of the Easter Island Image—Position and Number of the Ahu—Design and Construction of the Image Ahu—Reconstruction and Transformation—The Semi-pyramid Ahu—The Overthrow of the Images and Destruction of the Ahu.

In many places it is possible in the light of great monuments to reconstruct the past. In Easter Island the past is the present, it is impossible to escape from it; the inhabitants of to-day are less real than the men who have gone; the shadows of the departed builders still possess the land. Voluntarily or involuntarily the sojourner must hold commune with those old workers; for the whole air vibrates with a vast purpose and energy which has been and is no more. What was it? Why was it? The great works are now in ruins, of many comparatively little remains; but the impression infinitely exceeded anything which had been anticipated, and every day, as the power to see increased, brought with it a greater sense of wonder and marvel. “If we were to tell people at home these things,” said our Sailing-master, after being shown the prostrate images on the great burial-place of Tongariki, “they would not believe us.”

The present natives take little interest in the remains. The statues are to them facts of every-day life in much the same way as stones or banana-trees. “Have you no moai” (as they are termed) “in England?” was asked by one boy, in a tone in which surprise was slightly mingled with contempt; to ask for the history of the great works is as successful as to try to get from an old woman selling bootlaces at Westminster the story of Cromwell or of the frock-coated worthies in Parliament Square. The information given in reply to questions is generally wildly mythical, and any real knowledge crops up only indirectly.

Anyone who is able to go to the British Museum can see a typical specimen of an Easter Island statue, in the large image which greets the approaching visitor from under the portico (fig. 31). The general form is unvarying, and with one exception, which will be alluded to hereafter, all appear to be the work of skilled hands, which suggests that the design was well known and evolved under other conditions. It represents a half-length figure, at the bottom of which the hands nearly meet in front of the body. The most remarkable features are the ears, of which the lobe is depicted to represent a fleshy rope (fig. 58), while in a few cases the disc which was worn in it is also indicated (fig. 59). The fashion of piercing and distending the lobe of the ear is found among various primitive races.[[19]] The tallest statues are over 30 feet, a few are only 6 feet, and even smaller specimens exist. Those which stood on the burial-places, now to be described, are usually from 12 to 20 feet in height, and were surmounted with a form of hat.[[20]]

Position and Number of Ahu.—In Easter Island the problem of the disposal of the dead was solved by neither earth-burial nor cremation, but by means of the omnipresent stones which were built up to make a last resting-place for the departed. Such burial-places are known as “ahu,” and the name will henceforth be used, for it signifies a definite thing, or rather type of thing, for which we have no equivalent. They number in all some two hundred and sixty, and are principally found near the coast, but some thirty exist inland, sufficient to show that their erection on the seaboard was a matter of convenience, not of principle. With the exception of the great eastern and western headlands, where they are scarce, it is probably safe to say that, in riding round the island, it is impossible to go anywhere for more than a few hundred yards without coming across one of these abodes of the dead. They cluster most thickly on the little coves and their enclosing promontories, which were the principal centres of population. Some are two or three hundred yards away from the edge of the cliff, others stand on the verge; in the lower land they are but little above the sea-level, while on the precipitous part of the coast the ocean breaks hundreds of feet below.

PREHISTORIC REMAINS