. The boy travellers in Australasia : adventures of two youths in a journey to the Sandwich, Marquesas, Society, Samoan and Feejee islands, and through the colonies of New Zealand, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia. 72 THE BOY TEAVELLERS IN AUSTRALASIA. dred and thirteen have been Counted. On a precipice overlooking thesea is a village of ancient stone huts, where, it is said, the natives livedonly during a portion of the year. ]^ear by are also sculptured rocks,covered with curious and extremely interesting carvings. The platforms are from two to three hundr
. The boy travellers in Australasia : adventures of two youths in a journey to the Sandwich, Marquesas, Society, Samoan and Feejee islands, and through the colonies of New Zealand, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia. 72 THE BOY TEAVELLERS IN AUSTRALASIA. dred and thirteen have been Counted. On a precipice overlooking thesea is a village of ancient stone huts, where, it is said, the natives livedonly during a portion of the year. ]^ear by are also sculptured rocks,covered with curious and extremely interesting carvings. The platforms are from two to three hundred feet long, and aboutthirty feet high, built of hewn stones five or six feet long, and accurate-ly joined without cement. The platforms are at intervals all aroundthe coast, and some of the headlands were levelled off to form similarresting-places for the STONE PLATFORM ron IMAGES. All of the principal images have the top of the head cut flat andcrowned with a circular mass of red lava hewn perfectly round; someof these crowns are sixty-six inches in diameter, and fifty-two inchesthick, and were brought eight miles from the spot where they werequarried. About thirty crowns are lying in the quarries, and some ofthem are fully ten feet in diameter, and of proportionate height. Frank asked if the present inhabitants had any tradition concerningthese statues. None whatever, was the reply. At present there are less thantwo hundred people living there; they seem to be the degenerate re- INHABITANTS OF EASTER ISLAND. Y3 mains of a race something like the Maoris of New Zealand, and theyspeak a language similar to those people. Although undoubtedly a can-nibal race—in fact, one old man speaks with enthusiasm when askedregarding the custom—they are at present quiet and enlightened, butretain many superstitious ideas which they have received
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Keywords: ., bookcentury180, booksubjectsailors, booksubjectvoyagesandtravels
