532 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPflY AND TRAVEL 



perfect of the platforms had fifteen images on it. These 

 are trvmks 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 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 tuff found only at a small crater called 

 Terano Hau, about three miles from the stone houses, and 

 north of the large crater Terano Kau. At this place 

 there still remain thirty of these crowns waiting for re- 

 moval to the several platforms, some of them being 10-^ 

 feet diameter. The images, on the other hand, are made 

 of a gray, compact, trachytic lava found only at the crater 

 of Otuiti, 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 ex- 

 pression, the aspect always slightly 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 diflerent images, and the 

 ears with long pendent lobes. 



The existing natives know 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 hiero- 



