Joseph Banks - Endeavour Journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 - No. 0346
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[Page 346]
Otahite
as it was coverd from the weather with a kind of shed built purposely over it near it were three sculls of men laid in order very white & clean & quite perfect. from hence we proceeded to Papárra the district of our freinds Oama & Oborea where we proposd to sleep tonight we came there an hour before night & found that they were both from home they were gone to Matavie to see us this did not alter our resolution of sleeping here & we chose for that purpose the house of Oborea which tho small was very neat & had nobody in it but her father who was very civil to us after having setled our matters we took a walk towards a point on which we had from far observd trees of Etoa, Casuarina equisetifolia from whence we judgd that thereabouts would be some marai nor were we disapointed for we no sooner arrivd there than we were struck with the sight of a most enormous pile certainly the masterpeice of Indian architecture in this Island so all the inhabitants allowd its size & workmanship almost exceeds beleif I shall set it down exactly its form was like that of Marais in general resembling the roof of a house not smooth at the sides but formd into 11 steps each of these 4 feet in hight making in all 44 feet its lengh 267 its breadth 71. every one of these steps were formd of one course of white coral stones most neatly squard & polishd the rest were round pebbles but these seemd to have been workd from their uniformity of size & roundness Some of the coral stones were very large one I measurd was