_The South-Eastern Side of Rano Raraku_ is a problem in itself. The great wall formed by the cliff is like the ramparts of some giant castle rent by vertical fissures. The greatest height, the top of the peak, is about five hundred feet, of which the cliff forms perhaps half, the lower part being a steep but comparatively smooth bank of detritus. Over the grassy surface of this bank are scattered numerous fragments of rock, weighing from a few pounds to many tons, which have fallen down from above. The kitchen tent in our camp at the foot had a narrow escape from being demolished by one of these stones, which nearly carried it away in the impetus of its descent. It has never been suggested that this face of the mountain was being worked, nevertheless, it was subsequently difficult to understand how we lived so long below it, gazing at it daily, before we appreciated the fact that here also, although in much lesser degree, were both finished and embryo images. At last one stone was definitely seen to be in the form of a head, and excavation showed it to be an erected and buried statue. A few other figures were found standing and prostrate, and some unfinished images; these last, however, were in no case being hewn out of solid rock, but wrought into shape out of detached stones. On the whole, it is not probable that this portion was ever a quarry, in the same way as the western side and the interior of the crater. It is, of course, impossible to say what may be hidden beneath the detritus, but the lower part of the cliff is too soft a rock to be satisfactorily hewn, and the workmen appear simply to have seized on fragments which have fallen from above. “Here,” they seem to have said, “is a good stone; let us turn it into a statue.”