and the cylinder put on by building a mount round them, as above mentioned.  But, let them have been made and set up by this or any other method, they must have been a work of immense time, and sufficiently shew the ingenuity and perseverance of these islanders in the age in which they were built; for the present inhabitants have most certainly had no hand in them, as they do not even repair the foundations of those which are going to decay.  They give different names to them, such as Gotomoara, Marapate, Kanaro, Goway-too-goo, Matta Matta, &c. &c. to which they sometimes prefix the word Moi, and sometimes annex Areeke.  The latter signifies chief, and the former burying, or sleeping-place, as well as we could understand.[4]

Besides the monuments of antiquity, which were pretty numerous, and no where but on or near the sea-coast, there were many little heaps of stones, piled up in different places along the coast.  Two or three of the uppermost stones in each pile were generally white, perhaps always so, when the pile is complete.  It will hardly be doubted that these piles of stone had a meaning; probably they might mark the place where people had been buried, and serve instead of the large statues.

The working-tools of these people are but very mean, and, like those of all the other islanders we have visited in this ocean, made of stone, bone, shells, &c.  They set but little value on iron or iron tools, which is the more extraordinary, as they know their use; but the reason may be, their having but little occasion for them.

[1] “It was impossible for us to guess at the cause of this disproportion in the number of the different sexes; but as all the women we saw were very liberal of their favours, I conjectured at that time, that the married and the modest, who might be supposed to form the greater part, did not care to come near us, or were forced by the men to stay at their dwellings in the remote parts of the island.  These few who appeared were the most lascivious of their sex, that perhaps have ever been noticed in any country, and shame seemed to be entirely unknown to them.”—­G.F.

[2] “They were inferior in stature to the natives of the Society and Friendly Isles, and to those of New Zealand, there being not a single person amongst them, who might be reckoned tall.  Their body was likewise lean, and their face much thinner than that of any people we had hitherto seen in the South Sea.  Both sexes had thin, but not savage features, though the little shelter which their barren country offers against the sunbeams, had contracted their brows sometimes, and drawn the muscles of their face up towards the eye.  Their noses were not very broad, but rather flat between the eyes; their lips strong, though not so thick as those of negroes; and their hair black and curling, but always cut short, so as not to exceed three inches.  Their eyes were dark-brown, and rather small, the white being less clear than