Excerpt from The Mystery of Easter Island: The Story of an Expedition

In dealing with the main topic of the work, an endeavour has been made to give some idea of the problem of Easter Island as the Expedition found it, and also of its work there. With regard to this part, some appeal is necessary to the understanding kind ness of the reader, for it has not been an easy tale to tell, nor one which could be straightforwardly recounted. The story of Easter is as yet a tangled skein. The dim past, to which the megalithic works bear witness - the island as the early voyagers found it - its more recent history and present state, all of these are intermingled threads, none of which can be followed without reference to the remaining clues.

For those who would have preferred more scientific and fewer personal details, I can only humbly say wait, there is another volume in prospect with descriptions and dimensions of some two hundred and sixty burial-places on the island, thousands of measurements of statues, and other really absorbing matter. The numerical statements in the present book, dealing with archaeological remains, must be considered approximate till it has been possible to go again through the large collection of notes.

It is fairly obvious why the writing of this story has fallen to the share of the sole feminine member of the Expedition. I had also, what was, in spite of all things, the good fortune to be fourteen weeks longer on the island than my husband. They were fat weeks too, when the first lean ones, with their inevitable difficulties, were past and the unsettlement towards the end had not arrived. He has, I need hardly say, given me every assistance with this wvork. Generally speaking, all things which it is possible to touch and handle, buildings, weapons, and orna ments, were in his department while things of a less tangible description, such as religion, history, and folk-lore fell to my lot. Those who know him will recognise his touches throughout, and the account of the last part of the voyage, after my return to England, has been written by him.

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