3.s8 THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



irregular flat stones, but lined inside with upright flat slabs. 

 The inner dimensions are 40 feet by 13 feet, and they are 

 covered in by their slabs overlapping like tiles, till the centre 

 opening is about 5 feet wide, which is then covered in by long 

 thin slabs of stone. The upright slabs inside are painted in 

 red, black, and white, with figures of birds, faces, mythic 

 animals, and geometric figures. Great quantities of a uni- 

 valve shell were found in many of the houses, and in one of 

 them a statue 8 feet high and weighing four tons, now in the 

 British Museum. 



Near these houses the rocks on the brink of the sea cliffs 

 are carved into strange shapes, resembling tortoises, or into 

 odd faces. There are hundreds of these sculptures often over- 

 grown with bushes and grass. Much more extraordinary are 

 the platforms and images now to be described. On nearly 

 every headland round the coast of the island are enormous 

 platforms of stone, now more or less in ruins. Towards the 

 sea they present a wall 20 or 30 feet high,* and from 200 to 

 300 feet long, and built of large stones often 6 feet long, and 

 accurately fitted together without cement. Being built on 

 sloping ground, the back wall is lower, usually about a yard 

 high, leaving a platform at the top 30 feet wide, with square 

 ends. Landwards a wide terrace, more than 100 feet broad, 

 has been levelled, terminated by another step formed of stone. 

 On these platforms are large slabs serving as pedestals to the 

 images which once stood upon them, but which have now been 

 thrown down in all directions, and more or less mutilated. 



One of the most perfect of the platforms had fifteen images 

 on it. These are trunks terminating at the hips, the arms 

 close to the side, the hands sculptured in very low relief on the 

 haunches. They are flatter than the natural body. The 

 usual size of these statues was 15 or 18 feet high, but some 



