The Mystery of Easter Island Review
This reviewer first heard of this non-fiction travel book when I recently read the novel "Easter Island" by Jennifer Vanderbes (please enjoy my reader review of that novel too). That author made reference to the using Routledge's true story in her own novel. The main characters are based on Routledge and her 1914 Easter Island adventure expedition. This is a perfect example of the truth being stranger than the fiction.
The book is written in a very folksy light manner that was typical of many 1919 publications. Katherine Routledge and her husband "decided to see the Pacific before we died, and asked the anthropological authorities at the Britsh Museum what work there remained to be done, the answer was, `Easter Island.'" So in 1910 this wealthy couple decides to mount an exhibition to Easter Island. The first step is to build a 90-foot custom designed yacht in which to make the journey that they named "Mana." The Royal Navy "lent the Expedition a Lieutenant on full pay for navigation and survey." By this time the reader has a pretty good idea that Katherine Routledge wasn't a typical British citizen who wanted to go on a little ocean adventure. She seems more like a character out of Jules Verne science fiction novel. This may have been a scientific journey, but the expedition traveled in typical British Empire comfort.
Katherine Maria Pease Routledge was the second child of a very wealthy Quaker Family who decided to become an archaeologist. Her travel adventure is wonderfully related in this nearly 400-page reprint of the original 1919 book. The book is greatly enhanced by the addition of numerous drawings and photographs from the voyage. Routledge and her husband had previously published a book on the Kikuyu people of East Africa called "With a Prehistoric People."
Routledge, because of the time she arrived and researched the island was able to interview many people and study many traditions (such as tattooing) and works of art that had disappeared by the time later scientists arrived to study the island, its culture and the mysterious stone monuments the "Moai."
So typical of the glory years of the British Empire, lots of odd things happened even after the expedition ended. "The Royal Cruising Club Challenge Cup...was in 1917, awarded to `Mana" on her return...for a remarkable cruise of the Pacific." The two Pitcairners who joined the return voyage to England, who spoke "the pure Elizabethan English of the Bible and Prayer Book" were introduced to King George and Queen Mary and later provided passage back to the smallest colony of the British Empire.
"Only in England" could be applied to this story. It's a fascinating, fun read. It really does resemble a Jules Verne novel, only it really happened and was dutifully reported and the reader can look at the photos and admire the detailed drawings as well as read the written account.
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