WHO BUILT THOSE FORTS'! 359 



were as much as 37 feet, while others are only 4 or 5. The 

 head is flat, the top being cut off level to allow a crown to be 

 put on. These crowns were made of red vesicular tufa, found 

 only at a crater called Terano Hau, about 3 miles from the 

 stone houses. At this place there still remain thirty of these 

 crowns waiting for removal to the several platforms, some of 

 them being 10| feet in 'diameter. The images, on the other 

 hand, are made of grey, compact, trachytic lava, found only at 

 the crater of Otouli, quite the east end of the island, and about 

 8 miles from the ' crown ' quarry. Near the crater is a large 

 platform, on which a number of gigantic images are still 

 standing, the only ones erect on the island. The face and 

 neck of one of these measures 20 feet to the collar-bone, and 

 is in good preservation. The faces of these images are square, 

 massive, and disdainful in expression, the face turned always 

 upwards. The lips are remarkably thin the upper lip being 

 short, and the lower lip thrust up. The eye-sockets are deep, 

 and it is believed that eyeballs of obsidian were formerly 

 inserted in them. The nose is broad, the nostrils expanded, 

 the profile somewhat varied in the different images, and the 

 ears with long pendent lobes. The existing natives knoAv 

 nothing about these images. They possess, however, small 

 figures carved in solid dark wood, with strongly aquiline 

 profile, differing from that of the images, the mouth grinning, 

 and a small tuft on the chin. 



Wooden tablets, covered with strange hieroglyphics, have 

 also been found ; but it is evident that these wooden carvings, 

 as well as those of stone, are the relics of a former age. The 

 people have a tradition that many generations ago they emi- 

 grated from Oporo or Eapa Iti, one of the Soro Archipelago, 

 and 2300 miles to the westward. Hence they call their 

 present abode Eapa Nui, or Great Eapa, to distinguish it from 



