PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
83 
played. They were afterwards heard to say, that they preferred their CHAP, 
own simple musical contrivance to the violin. They did not appear to 
have the least ear for music : one of the officers took considerable pains Dec. 
to teach them the hundredth psalm, that they might not chaunt all 
the psalms and hymns to the same air ; but they did not evince the 
least aptitude or desire to learn it. 
The following day was devoted to the completion of our view of 
the island, of which the natives were anxious we should see every part. 
We accordingly set out with the same guides by a road which brought 
us to “ the Kope,” a steep cliff, so called from its being necessary to 
descend it by a rope. It is situated at the eastern end of the island, 
and overlooks a small sandy bay lined with rocks, which render it dan- 
gerous for a boat to attempt to land there. 
At the foot of “the Rope” some stone axes were found, and a 
hone, the manufacture of the aborigines, and upon the face of a large 
rock were some characters very rudely engraved, which we copied ; they 
appeared to have been executed by the Bounty’s people, though Adams 
did not recollect it. To the left of “ the Rope” is a peak of consider- 
able height, overlooking Bounty Bay. Upon this eminence the muti- 
neers, on their arrival, found four images, about six feet in height, 
placed upon a platform ; and, according to Adams’s description, not 
unlike the morais at Easter Island, excepting that they were upon a 
much smaller scale. One of these images, which had been preserved, 
"as a rude representation of the human figure to the hips, and was 
hewn out of a piece of red lava. 
^^ear this supposed morai, we were told that human bones and 
stone hatchets were occasionally dug up, but we could find only two 
hones, by which we might judge of the stature of these aborigines. 
These were an os femoris and a part of a cranium of an unusual size 
‘lud thickness. The hatchets, of which we obtained several specimens, 
"ere made of a compact basaltic lava, not unlike clinkstone, very hard, 
and capable of a fine polish. In shape they resembled those used at 
Otaheite, and by all the islanders of these seas that 1 have seen. A 
large stone bowl was also found, similar to those used at Otaheite, and 
two stone huts. That this island should have been inhabited is not 
M 2 
