360 THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



Eapa Iti, or Little Eapa. An implement of stone, a mere long 

 pebble with a chisel-edge, is believed to have been the chief 

 tool used in producing these wonderful statues; but it is almost 

 incredible that with such imperfect appliances, works so gigantic 

 could have been executed, literally by hundreds, in an island 

 of such insignificant dimensions, and so completely isolated 

 from the rest of the world. This difficulty is so great that 

 some writers have suggested an ancient civilisation over the 

 Pacific as the only means of overcoming it. The forces of 

 distant groups of islands might then have been combined for 

 the execution of these remarkable works in a remote island, 

 which may perhaps have been the sanctuary of their religion, 

 and the supposed dwelling-place of their gods. 



At present Easter Island is the great mystery of the Pacific, 

 and the more we know of its strange antiquities, the less we 

 are able to understand them. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 



THE SOLOMON ISLANDS. 



VERY little is known of the Solomon Group of islands, dis- 

 covered by Mendana in 1668 (40 36' S. lat., and 151 55' E., 

 and 162 30' E. long.), and that little is not, as a rule, of a 

 pleasant character. They are inhabited by dark-skinned, 

 woolly-headed Papuans, and though the Fiji Government- 

 conducted labour-vessels are breaking the ice and demonstrat- 

 ing that every white man is not necessarily a man-stealer, it 

 has been for years past a terra incognita to those profoundly 

 versed in other islands of the Southern Seas. 



