United States or Martinique ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was not nearly of the original height, hardly a third of it, and was covered with twisted and gnarled toa, or ironwood, trees like banians, the etoa of Cook, and by very tall and broad pandanus, by masses of lantana and other flowering growths. Tetuanui, Brooke, and I stumbled through these, and walked about the uneven top, once the floor of the temple.
Their arms were long lances, made of the etoa, the wood of which is very hard; they were well polished and sharpened at one end: some were near twenty feet long, though not more than three fingers thick; they had also a weapon which was both club and pike, made of the same wood, about seven feet long; this also was well polished, and sharpened at one end into a broad point.
The whole pyramid was not straight, but formed a slight curve, and made one side of a spacious area or square of three hundred and sixty feet by three hundred and fifty-four feet, enclosed by a stone wall, and paved throughout its whole extent with flat stones. Several trees, called etoa and plantains, were growing through the pavement.
It is thirteen miles in circuit, and rather high than low, but neither populous nor fertile in proportion to the other islands that we had seen in these seas. The chief produce seems to be the tree of which they make their weapons, called in their language etoa; many plantations of it were seen along the shore, which is not surrounded, like the neighbouring islands, by a reef.
It is then taken away, and laid upon the smooth side of a long piece of wood, prepared for the purpose, and beaten, by the women servants, with instruments about a foot long and three inches thick, made of a hard wood which they call Etoa.
Word Of The Day