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Easter Island: Early Witnesses
William Thomson
492
December 26.-Our native contingent deserted in a body at daylight on the plea that their religions convictions would not permit them to work on Sunday. Remonstrances and arguments were in vain, and we had to permit them to depart after exacting a promise that they would return early the next morning. Luka, the chief guide, lingered a while to state that his family burial place was beneath the great platform of Tongariki, and that he had a decided aversion to having the skulls of his ancestors added to our collection.
Sunday inspection and its attendant functions has through long custom become second nature with the men who have been long in the service, and through the desire to thus mark the day, the most valuable of our geological specimens were lost. The boatswain's mate took advantage of our temporary absence to clean up the cave and make it more presentable, and in doing so, threw all the stones and "trash" into the sea. Nothing could be said, in view of the fact that it was done with the best possible intentions, but he was greatly chagrined to find that those same stones had been carried over many a weary mile to be lost now, when it was impossible to obtain duplicates or other specimens of some of the peculiar formations met with on the first days of the trip.
RANA RORAKA.
The day was devoted to the examination of the inside of the crater of Rana Roraka. The walls of the crater are very abrupt except on the west side, where the lava-flow escaped to the sea, and here the cattle and horses find easy access to the pool of water that has collected in the bottom. High up on the southern side are the workshops of the image-builders, extending in irregular terraces quite to the top. Here we found images in all stages of incompletion (Fig. 10), from the rude
FIG. 10.
UNFINISHED IMAGE, CRATER OF RANA RORAKA.
outline drawing to the finished statue ready to be cut loose from its original rock and launched down the steep incline. The modus operandi
492
