1. On Easter Sunday, 1722 Captain Roggeveen sighted a previously uncharted island in the South Pacific. Although the inhabitants seemed friendly, the Dutch sailors were suspicious and opened up with a .......... that left many islanders dead or wounded.

2. The panicky islanders, who had never seen others from outside their island, tried to .......... the visitors with gifts of poultry, fruit, and vegetables.

3. Only the .......... statues were of interest to Captain Roggeveen, as he found the rest of the island a huge disappointment, an almost barren wasteland.

4. In 1786, the French explorer le Comte de La Perouse decided to .......... the myths and legends surrounding Easter Island. He took a diarist, three naturalists, an astronomer and a physicist on his exploration.

5. In his diary, La Perouse .......... that the island might have once been heavily forested. Recent scientific research agreed when examination of pollen grains found on the island revealed that Easter Island was once covered with heavy vegetation.

6. Today, a visitor to Easter Island will still stare in .......... wonder at the sight of the hundreds of huge protruding brows on the moai statues. However, many of the stone statues have toppled, perhaps due to a volcanic eruption.

7. All of the moai have clear, .......... features: long earlobes, unhappy-looking mouths, and long chins, with their heads set on stunted torsos and hands resting on their midriffs.

8. Another fascinating detail is that each moai, standing almost 33 feet tall, seems to be carved from a single block of .......... stone.

9. Historians and archaeologists have puzzled for over 250 years trying to understand how a primitive people could carve these great .......... . In addition, they wonder why there is no other evidence of their civilization.

10. One theory proposed by experts is that the society was wiped out by a .......... disease or capture by slave traders.