Soon after Phaeton returned with Miss Glidden, tea was announced.
Both during the meal and afterward, Mr. Burton did the greater part of the talking, and his conversation consisted mainly of a running account of his adventures since he left his home, more than a dozen years before. I give the story as nearly as possible in his own words. It was of a nature to seize upon a boy's fancy; but I fear it has not lain in my memory all these years without losing many of its nicest points.
"I was a tall and slender boy," said Mr. Burton,—"so slender that my parents feared I would become consumptive, and I reached the age of twenty without improving much in that respect. Our family physician said a long sea-voyage might build me up and make a strong man of me, and as my uncle owned a large interest in a whaler then fitting out, at Nantucket, for a cruise in the North Pacific, it was arranged that I should make the voyage. By my own choice, I shipped as a common sailor before the mast, as it seemed to me that was the only way to get the full benefit of the experience.
"I need not tell you the story of the tedious passage around Cape Horn, against head winds and through rainy seas. You have all read it dozens of times. The greenest hand on board was an accomplished sailor by the time we reached the whaling-ground. We had a prosperous cruise, and I calculated that though the hundred and twenty-fifth lay, which was to be my share, would not make me rich, it would give me considerable pocket-money when we got home.
"When we turned our prow southward for the long homeward voyage, our troubles began. Week after week we labored against heavy gales and head seas. It was many months since we had been in port, and we were not well equipped for so long a strain. At last, when we were barely out of the tropics, a terrific and long-continued easterly gale struck us, and drove us helplessly before it. Just before daylight, one morning, she struck heavily, with a shock that sent one of the masts overboard. Dawn showed us that we were wrecked on a lonely island. As nearly as the captain could calculate, this was in south latitude 27° and longitude 110° west.
"We judged that the island must be about a dozen miles long. Three volcanic peaks rose in plain sight, to a height of more than a thousand feet, and between their branching ridges were green valleys sloping down to the shore. If you ever see an old cart-wheel, with half its spokes broken or missing, which has lain upon the ground till the grass has sprung up through it, you may look upon it as a rude representation of the appearance that island presented from the sea. The hub would be the cone of an extinct volcano, the weather-beaten wood being about the color of the volcanic rock, and the remaining spokes the irregular, sharp ridges that radiated from it, some of them reaching to the water's edge and others stopping half-way.
"An hour or two after daylight, we found there was no possibility of saving the ship, though the storm was over. We launched the boats, but could make no landing on that side of the island, which was steep and rocky. So we pulled southward, and through a channel where two rocky islets lay off the south-east point, and soon came to a pretty bay, where we made a landing.
"Looking at the shore through the misty dawn, we had seen what looked like giants standing on the flat roofs of their houses and watching us. But they showed no signs of life, and the captain at length made them out, through his glass, to be images of some sort. We afterward had abundant opportunity to examine them, and found them to be stone statues of colossal size. What we had taken for houses were three platforms of solid masonry, built on ground that sloped toward and overlooked the sea. Four of these great statues had originally stood on each of the platforms, but most of the twelve were now overthrown. We measured one that lay on the ground, and found it was fifteen feet high and six feet across the shoulders.
"They were cut in gray stone, and each statue that was still standing had on its head an immense red stone, smoothly cut to the shape of a cylinder, at least a yard high,—as if it wore what you call a band-box hat, but with no brim. We afterward found there were great numbers of these statues in various places on the island, though mostly on the east side. Few of them seemed to be finished. It was as if the sculptor had taken the rough blocks and begun work at the top, and, after bringing out the statue perhaps as far down as the waist, had left it in that condition, and begun on the next one. The largest one we found was over twenty-five feet high.
"It was two hours after our landing before we saw any living being. Then we saw three children peeping at us from the top of a little hill. When we discovered them, they scampered away, and pretty soon a crowd of people appeared, led by an old man whose face was painted white, and who carried a long spear.