30 
THE TWO RACES WHICH PEOPLED POLYNESIA. 
In tlie centre,, a little raised above the surrounding ground, 
is a large vault, the ancient entrance to it was thoroughly 
closed by basaltic prisms, but I entered by a crevice in the 
top. The vault inside is fifteen feet by ten, and seven by 
eight in depth ; the top of the vault is covered with immense 
basaltic columns, extending the whole length, and measuring 
seventeen feet in length. On the top there is a large bread 
fruit tree growing, whose roots extended down through the 
vault into the ground below. There are several other similar 
vaults in different parts of the ruins.” 
The ruins of a large town under water are seen in the 
shallows, large buildings, regular streets, and a square 
in the centre, with apparently a large temple ; changes of 
level taking place in this part of the ocean are great and 
frequent. 
At Easter Island there are broken down terraces, large 
stone statues, monuments probably of ancient deified kings, 
and mounds, which resemble in their triangular shape the 
Teocallis of Mexico. One of the statues measured by Mr. 
Foster was twenty- seven feet high and nine feet in diameter.* 
In the Marquesas and Sandwich Islands are still more 
extensive remains of mounds, roads, and buildings, similar 
to those in South America. 
Around the burial ground at Moa I observed large slabs 
of a coarse red porphyry, which is brought from an island in 
the Lagoon ; this is the rock of which large blocks were 
conveyed in former times to Tongataboo in their great war 
canoes, when its chiefs held that and the intermediate isles 
of Mua-foo and Keppels ; this accounts for the existence of 
ruins of buildings and circles of stones, composed of mate- 
rials obtained from distant localities, as those at Kunaie, 
or Strong^s Isle, at Paasden, Easter and other isles. f 
* It is to be feared that these most interesting monuments of byegone days 
have been either partially or entirely destroyed by the Peruvian slave hunters, 
who, to the shame of their country, a few years ago visited those lone islands 
of the Pacific, and carried off their inhabitants to work as slaves in the mines. — ■ 
Cruise of the Fawn. 
f Cruise of the Fawn. 
