He had had his hair and beard cut short on shipboard the day before he landed.  These he now dyed with a dye that he had brought from England, and which in a few minutes turned them very nearly black.  He also stained his face and hands deep brown.  He hung his saddle and bridle, his English boots, and his saddle-bags on the highest bough that he could reach, and made them fairly fast with strips of flax leaf, for there was some stunted flax growing on the ground where he had camped.  He feared that, do what he might, they would not escape the inquisitive thievishness of the parrots, whose strong beaks could easily cut leather; but he could do nothing more.  It occurs to me, though my father never told me so, that it was perhaps with a view to these birds that he had chosen to put his English sovereigns into a metal box, with a clasp to it which would defy them.

He made a roll of his blanket, and slung it over his shoulder; he also took his pipe, tobacco, a little tea, a few ship’s biscuits, and his billy and pannikin; matches and salt go without saying.  When he had thus ordered everything as nearly to his satisfaction as he could, he looked at his watch for the last time, as he believed, till many weeks should have gone by, and found it to be about seven o’clock.  Remembering what trouble it had got him into years before, he took down his saddle-bags, reopened them, and put the watch inside.  He then set himself to climb the mountain side, towards the saddle on which he had seen the statues.

CHAPTER III:  MY FATHER WHILE CAMPING IS ACCOSTED BY PROFESSORS HANKY AND PANKY

My father found the ascent more fatiguing than he remembered it to have been.  The climb, he said, was steady, and took him between four and five hours, as near as he could guess, now that he had no watch; but it offered nothing that could be called a difficulty, and the watercourse that came down from the saddle was a sufficient guide; once or twice there were waterfalls, but they did not seriously delay him.

After he had climbed some three thousand feet, he began to be on the alert for some sound of ghostly chanting from the statues; but he heard nothing, and toiled on till he came to a sprinkling of fresh snow—­part of the fall which he had observed on the preceding day as having whitened the higher mountains; he knew, therefore, that he must now be nearing the saddle.  The snow grew rapidly deeper, and by the time he reached the statues the ground was covered to a depth of two or three inches.

He found the statues smaller than he had expected.  He had said in his book—­written many months after he had seen them—­that they were about six times the size of life, but he now thought that four or five times would have been enough to say.  Their mouths were much clogged with snow, so that even though there had been a strong wind (which there was not) they would not have chanted.  In other respects he found them not less mysteriously impressive than at first.  He walked two or three times all round them, and then went on.