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Easter Island: Early Witnesses
William Thomson
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could be kept awake no longer. It had been proposed that we should occupy one of the ancient stone houses for the night, in order to be near the scene of operations planned for the next day, but they were damp and ill-smelling and the work accomplished on the traditions more than repaid the time lost in recrossing the island.
THE ANCIENT STONE HOUSE AT ORONGO.
December 20.-Leaving Vaihu at early daylight we arrived at Hanga Roa in time to meet the detachment of eight selected men sent on shore from the ship with proper tools and implements for making a thorough exploration of Orongo and vicinity. (Plate XIX). The blue-jackets scampered up the slope of Rana Kao with the buoyant spirits of schoolboys out for a holiday, and arriving at the spot were anxious to lend the assistance of willing hands and plenty of brawn to the prosecution of the work.
Every house was entered and inspected, though occasionally a miscalculation was made in the dimensions of a narrow passage-way and it became necessary to rescue a prisoner by dragging him back by the heels. Once inside the building, the interior could be easily inspected and sketches made of frescoes and sculptured figures. (Plate XX).
These remarkable habitations were built against a terrace of earth or rock, which in some cases formed the back wall of the dwelling (Fig. 5). From this starting point a wall was constructed of small slabs of stratified basaltic rock, piled together without cement and of a thickness varying from about 3 feet to a massive rampart of 7 feet in width.
FIG. 5.
VIEW OF STONE HUT IN ORONGO.
The outer entrance is formed by short stone posts planted in the ground and crossed by a basaltic slab. The passageway was in all cases unpaved and usually lined on the top and both sides with flat stones. This important feature added materially to our comfort while forcing an entrance through some of the narrow openings, and saved the necessity for adding to our already bountiful supply of bruises and abrasions. No regularity of plan is shown in the construction of the majority of the houses; some are parallelogram in shape, others elliptical, and many are immethodical, showing a total absence of design, the builder being guided by the conformation of the ground, the amount of material available, and other chance circumstances. These houses
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