532 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
perfect of the platforms had fifteen images on it. These 
are trunks 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 10j> 
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 different 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- 
