492 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, I88S. 



December 26. — Our native contingent deserted iu a body at daylight 

 on the plea that their religious convictions would not permit them to 

 work on Sunday. Remonstrances and arguments were in vain, and we 

 had to permit them to depart after exacting a promise that they would 

 return early the next morning. Luka, the chief guide, lingered a while 

 to state that his family burial place was beneath the great platform of 

 Tongariki, and that he had a decided aversion to having the skulls of 

 his ancestors added to our collection. 



Sunday inspection and its attendant functions has through long cus- 

 tom become second nature with the men who have been long in the serv- 

 ice, and through the desire to thus mark the day, the most valuable 

 of our geological specimens were lost. The boatswain's mate took ad- 

 vantage of our temporary absence to clean up the cave and make it 

 more presentable, and, in doing so, threw all the stones and "trash" into 

 the sea. Nothing could be said, in view of the fact that it was done 

 with the best possible intentions, but he was greatly chagrined to find 

 that those same stones had been carried over many a weary mile to be 

 lost now, when it was impossible to obtain duplicates or other specimens 

 of some of the peculiar formations met with on the tirst days of the trip. 



RANA RORAKA. 



The day was devoted to the examination of the inside of the crater of 

 Eana Roraka. The walls of the crater are very abrupt except on the 

 west side, where the lava-flow escaped to the sea, and here the c;ittle 

 and horses find easy access to the pool of water that has collected iu 

 the bottom. High up on the southern side are the workshops of the 

 image-builders, extending in irregular terraces quite to the top. Here 

 we found images in all stages of incompletion (Fig. 10), from the rude 



Fig. 10. 



Unfinished Image, ckater of Rana Roraka. 



outline drawing to the finished statue ready to be cut loose from its 

 original rock and launched down the steep incline. The modus operandi 



