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was given. Hotu-Matua and his followers are believed to have brought with them potatoes, yams, bananas, sugar-cane, and the seed of various plants, including the paper-mulberry and toromiro trees. The newly discovered species of legume, together with fish and turtle, enabled the first settlers to exist while the first crop was being planted and cultivated.
   Nothing could be more contradictory than the description which the different voyagers have given of Easter Island. Roggeveen states that it was destitute of trees, but the land was found to be exceptionally fertile, producing bananas, potatoes, and sugar-cane of extraordinary thickness, and concludes by saying that the island, by virtue of its productive soil and salubrious climate, could be made an earthly paradise by careful cultivation. Behrens speaks of trees on the island, but to his romantic eyes the clusters of banana and paper-mulberries were magnified into forests. Captain Cook expresses great disappointment in the expectation that he had formed of this island as a place of refreshment. The only articles of importance obtained were potatoes and yams, and these were only sufficient to serve for a few meals; while the fowls, bananas, and sugar-cane were in such inconsiderable quantities that they were deemed hardly worth mentioning. George Foster writes:

   The island is so very barren that the whole number of plants growing upon it does not exceed twenty species, of which the far greater part is cultivated, though the space which the platforms occupy is inconsiderable compared with what lies waste. The soil is altogether stony and parched by the sun, and the water is so scarce that the inhabitants drink it out of wells which have a strong admixture of brine, and some of our people really saw them drink of the sea water when they were thirsty.

   Mr. Foster devoted considerable attention to the investigation of indigenous plants, and his report embraces all of the most important varieties. He found the paper-mulberry carefully cultivated for the purpose of making cloth. The stems were from 2 to 4 feet high, and they were planted in rows among the rocks where the rains had washed a little soil together. The Thespesia populnea Carr. (Hibiscus populneus Linn.), was cultivated in the same manner, and likewise a Mimosa which is referred to as the only shrub that affords the natives sticks for their clubs and pattoo-pattoos, and wood sufficient to patch up a canoe. Wild celery and a few other small plants were identified as the same species as that which he had found growing in abundance on the shores of New Zealand. He also discovered a variety of nightshade, which the Tahitians use as a vulnerary remedy (Solanum nigrum), and speculates as to whether it was used here for the same purpose.
   La Pérouse, impressed with a desire to relieve to some extent the destitute condition in which he found the islanders and of contributing essentially and lastingly to their welfare, had ground prepared in which he sowed various kinds of pulse. Peaches, plums, and cherries were planted, also pips of oranges and lemons. The natives were instructed

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