The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-12-17

Records of Prehistoric People-Colossal
Figures. Massive Ruins and Palaces
with Painted walls-Ths Wonders OF
Easter Island.
The Caroline islands, which are now
recognized as belonging to Spain, though
the Germans tried to annex them few
years ago, form one of the largest archi-
pelagos Of the Pacific, covering a sea area
of more than z, 900 miles, and comprising
over 500 separate fragments of land.
Some of these islets are mere rocks.
many are uninhabited and q few are
very populous. Excepting those at the
eastern end Of the chain, and the large
island of zap at the western end, they
have been rarely, some of them never,
visited by white men, unless in the dubi-
Gus form Of ''beach combers."
Kusaie, sometimes called Strong isl
and, is about fifty miles in circumfer-
ence, is of basaltic formation, has a
large extent of high ground, and boasts
of two excellent harbors. The people
are reputedly industrious and peaceable
for South Sea lslanders-and they have
. king of their own. They belong, to
all appearance, TO the Polynesian race,
but travellers have declared that they
seem capable of a higher civilization
than the average Polynesian. 1t is re-
marksble that the chiefs communicate
by signs and speech not understood by
the common people.
LITTLE EASTER ISLAND.
If we traverse some few thousand
miles of ocean to the very eastern out
skirts of Polynesia we shall find the lit
tie island called Easter island, which is
barely ten miles long by four miles
broad, which has no trees, no running
water, and very little about it TO attract
settlers. 1t is of volcanic origin, and
one of the extinct craters is over 900
feet high.
Yet this physically uninteresting ISL
and, peopled by Polynesians of the fair
type, such as are found in the Society
islands, is the greatest mystery of the Pa
cifc. 1t is covered with remains of some
prehistoric people of whom every record
but that preserved in stone seems to have
vanished.
At the southwest end of this little ISL
and there are to be found the ruins Of
nearly hundred stone houses, built in
regular lines and facing the sea. The
walls of these houses are five feet thick
and over five feet high, built Of layers of
fat stones and lined inside with fat
slabs. Internally the houses measure
about forty feet long by thirteen feet
wide, and they are rooted over with slabs
overlapping like tiles. The inside walls
are painted in three cel0rs-red, black
and white-with figures Of birds and
mystic beasts and faces and geometrical
figures. In one Of these houses was
found a curious stone statue eight feet
high and weighing about four tons,
which is now in the British museum.
The sea cliffs near this ancient settle
ment are carved into grotesque shapes
not unlike the paintings on the walls, and
the coast is marked with hundreds of
these strange sculptures.
Again, on each headland Of the island
there is an enormous stone platform,
built of hewn blocks of great size, fitted
without cement. They are built
onsloping ground, presenting on the sea-
ward side wall face twenty or thirty
feet high and two or three hundred feet
long, and on the landward side wall
of about three feet in height rising from
a level terrace.