530 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TEAVEL 



of ]Mr. Palmer in the Jommal of the Royal Geogrwpliical 

 Society for 1870. At the extreme south-west end of the 

 island are_ a great number (80 or 100) stone houses built 

 in regular lines, with doors facing the sea. The walls are 

 5 feet thick and 5^ feet high, built of layers of irregular 

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

 inner dimensions are about 40 feet by 13 feet, and the 

 I'oofing is formed by thin slabs overlappiug 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 univalve shell were found 

 in many of the houses, and in one of them a statue, 

 8 feet high and weighing 4 tons, now in the British 

 Museum. Xear 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 overgrown with bushes and grass. 



]\Iuch 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, built of large stones often 6 feet long, and accu- 

 rately 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 



