444 ART. STATUES. 



The Brazilians also use ornaments of imperfectly crystallised 

 quartz, from four to eight inches long and about an inch in 

 diameter. Hard as it is, they contrive to drill a hole at each 

 end, using for that purpose the pointed leaf-shoot of the large 

 wild plantain, with sand and water. The hole is generally 

 transverse, but the ornaments of the chiefs are actually 

 pierced lengthways. This, Mr. "Wallace thinks, must be a 

 work of years.* 



The works of art found in the Dordogne caves are no 

 better than those of the Esquimaux or the North American 

 Indians. In fact, the appreciation of art is to be regarded 

 rather as an ethnological characteristic than as an indication 

 of any particular stage in civilisation. We see, again, that 

 in many cases a certain knowledge of agriculture has pre- 

 ceded the use of metals ; and the fortifications of New Zea- 

 land, as well as the large morais of the South Sea Islands, 

 are arguments in favor of the theory which ascribes some of 

 our camps, our great tumuli, and other Druidical remains, to 

 the later part of the Stone age. The great morai of Oberea, 

 in Tahiti, has been already described (p. 385). Again, the 

 celebrated statues of Easter Island are really colossal. One 

 of them, which has fallen down, measures twenty-seven feet 

 long, and others appear to be even larger. The houses 

 of the Ladrone Islanders, also, are very remarkable. The 

 larger ones were supported on strong pyramids of stone. 

 These were, according to Freycinet,f in one piece, made of 

 chalk, sand, or large stones, imbedded in a kind of cement. 

 They were found in large numbers ; in one case they formed 

 a stone row four hundred yards long. They were first de- 

 scribed by Anson, who saw many which were thirteen feet 

 in height ; while one of those seen by Freycinet measured 

 as much as twenty feet. They were square at the base, and 

 rested on the ground. On each pillar was a hemisphere, 

 * Travels on the Amazon, p, 278. f Vol. ii., p. 318. 



