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Easter Island: Early Witnesses
William Thomson
478
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
478