Captain Cook Was Much Indebted For Now Falling In With This Island, To The Superior Means He Possessed Of Ascertaining His Longitude.

Byron, Carteret, and Bouganville, all missed it, although they took their departure from no greater a distance than the islands of Juan Fernandez.

Most of the writers who mention Easter Island, agree pretty well together as to its latitude, but the Spanish accounts are not less than thirty leagues erroneous as to its longitude. - E.

[2] See this in vol. XI. p. 95 of this collection; but the description afterwards given is much more satisfactory. - E.

[3] "He was of the middle size, about five feet eight inches high, and remarkably hairy on the breast, and all over the body. His colour was a chesnut brown, his beard strong, but clipped short, and of a black colour, as was also the hair of his head, which was likewise cut short. His ears were very long, almost hanging on his shoulders, and his legs punctured in compartments after a taste which we had observed no where else. He had only a belt round his middle, from whence a kind of net-work descended before, too thin to conceal any thing from the sight. A string was tied about his neck, and a flat bone, something shaped like a tongue, and about four inches long, was fastened to it, and hung down on the breast. This he told us, was a porpoise's bone (eavee toharra) expressing it exactly by the same words which an Otaheitean would have made use of. Mahine, who had already expressed his impatience to go ashore, was much pleased to find that the inhabitants spoke a language so similar to his own, and attempted to converse with our new visitor several times, but was interrupted by the questions which many other persons in the ship put to him." - G.F.

[4] "Almost all of them were naked, some having only a belt round the middle, from whence a small bit of cloth, six or eight inches long, or a little net, hang down before. A very few of them had a cloak which reached to the knees, made of cloth, resembling that of Otaheite in the texture, and stitched or quilted with thread to make it the more lasting. Most of these cloaks were painted yellow with the turmeric root." - G.F.

[5] "After staying among the natives for some time on the beach, we began to walk into the country. The whole ground was covered with roots and stones of all sizes, which seemed to have been exposed to a great fire, where they had acquired a black colour and porous appearance. Two or three shrivelled species of grasses grew up among these stones, and in a slight degree softened the desolate appearance of the country. About fifteen yards from the landing place, we saw a perpendicular wall of square hewn stones, about a foot and a half or two feet long, and one foot broad. Its greatest height was about seven or eight feet, but it gradually sloped on both sides, and its length might be about twenty yards. A remarkable circumstance was the junction of these stones, which were laid after the most excellent rules of art, fitting in such a manner as to make a durable piece of architecture. The stone itself, of which they are cut, is not of great hardness, being a blackish brown cavernous and brittle stony lava. The ground rose from the water side upwards; so that another wall, parallel to the first, about twelve yards from it, and facing the country, was not above two or three feet high. The whole area between the two walls was filled up with soil and covered over with grass. About fifty yards farther to the south, there was another elevated area, of which the surface was paved with square stones exactly similar to those which formed the walls. In the midst of this area, there was a pillar consisting of a single stone, which represented a human figure to the waist, about twenty feet high, and upwards of five feet wide. The workmanship of this figure was rude, and spoke the arts in their infancy. The eyes, nose, and mouth, were scarcely marked on a lumpish ill-shaped head; and the ears, which were excessively long, quite in the fashion of the country, were better executed than any other part, though a European artist would have been ashamed of them. The neck was clumsy and short, and the shoulders and arms very slightly represented. On the top of the head a huge round cylinder of stone was placed upright, being above five feet in diameter and in height. This cap, which resembled the head-dress of some Egyptian divinity, consisted of a different stone from the rest of the pillar, being of a more reddish colour; and had a hole on each side, as if it had been made round by turning. The cap, together with the head, made one half of the whole pillar which appeared above ground. We did not observe that the natives paid any worship to these pillars, yet they seemed to hold them in some kind of veneration, as they sometimes expressed a dislike when we walked over the paved area or pedestals, or examined the stones of which it consisted. A few of the natives accompanied us farther on into the country, where we had seen some bushes at a distance, which we hoped would afford us something new. Our road was intolerably rugged, over heaps of volcanic stones, which rolled away under our feet, and against which we continually hurt ourselves. The natives who were accustomed to this desolate ground, skipped nimbly from stone to stone without the least difficulty. In our way we saw several black rats running about, which it seems are common to every island in the South Sea. Being arrived at the shrubbery which we had in view, we found it was nothing but a small plantation of the paper mulberry, of which here, as well as at Otaheite, they make their cloth.

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