orning, thirty miles away. We felt pretty good
over that, and had two cupfuls of the mixture, because we felt we
were nearly safe. My God! what we felt when we saw the rise of that
land! The captain said it was Easter Island for certain, but that
it was not a place that any merchant ships ever went, as there was
no trade there. Once we saw the land we could not get any nearer
to it. We tried to row toward it, but the wind was against us. Two
days we hung about the back of that island, just outside the line
of breakers. We were afraid to risk a landing, for the coast was
rocky. On the eleventh day we saw a spot where the rocks looked white,
and we rowed in toward it with great pains and much fear. A big sea
threw us right upon a smooth boulder, and we leaped from the boat and
tried to run ashore. We were weak and fell down many times. Finally
we got a hold and we carried everything out of the boat, and after
hours hauled it up out of reach of the breakers.

"There was a cliff that went right up straight from the rocks, and
we could not climb it, we were so weak from hunger and the cramped
position we had had to keep in the boat. We laid down a while, and
then it was decided that the first and second mates should have a good
feed and try to get up the precipice. We were taking risks, because
we had very little grub left. It was about a hundred feet up, and we
watched them closely as they went slowly up. They did not come back,
and we were much afraid of what they might find. We did not know but
there might be savages there. During the day the other sailors also
got up, leaving the old man and me to watch the boat.

"Help arrived for us. The mates had walked all night, and at daybreak
they reached the house of the head man, employed by the owner of
Easter Island. It was a sheep and horse island. The mates were fed,
and then they went on to the house of the manager. Horses were gotten
out, and bananas and poi sent to us. The water just came in time,
because we were all out. They brought horses for all of us then, and
after we had started the people of the island went ahead and came back
with water and milk, which did us a world of good. At the house of the
governor we had a mess of brown beans, and then we all fell asleep
on the floor. God knows how long we slept, but when we waked up we
were like wolves again. We then had beans with fresh killed mutton,
and that made us all deathly sick because our stomachs were weak."