es in plan and to which it is
comparable in size. The resemblance struck Dr. Charles Forbes, the first
to publish a description of the monument based on personal observation.
He says: "The route we pursued led us over a country perfectly level,
with the exception of occasional mounds of earth, apparently artificial,
and reminding one very much of the barrows of Wilts and Dorset, which
idea is still more strongly impressed upon the mind on coming in sight
of the monument, which bears a most striking resemblance to the larger
gateway-looking stones at Stonehenge."[196] But at the same time, as Dr.
Forbes did not fail to note, the Tongan trilithon differs in some
respects from those of Stonehenge. In the first place the interval (ten
or twelve feet) between the uprights of the Tongan trilithon appears to
be much greater than the interval between the uprights of the trilithons
at Stonehenge.[197] In the second place, the cross-stone of the Tongan
trilithon is mortised much more deeply into the uprights than are the
cross-stones at Stonehenge. For whereas at Stonehenge these cross-stones
present the appearance of being laid flat on the top of the uprights,
the cross-stone of the Tongan trilithon is sunk deeply into the uprights
by means of mortises or grooves about two feet wide which are cut into
the uprights, so that the top of the cross-stone is nearly flush with
their tops, while its ends also are nearly flush with their outside
surfaces.[198]

[196] Dr. Charles Forbes, in _Archaeologia_, xxxv. p. 496.

[197] I have no measurements of these intervals, but write from
the impression of a recent visit to Stonehenge.

[198] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of
Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii.
(1902) p. 82, quoting the anonymous pamphlet _The Wairarapa
Wilderness_.

As the origin and purpose of Stonehenge are still unknown, its massive
trilithons can hardly be cited to explain the similar monument of
Tongataboo. The rival theories which see in Stonehenge a memorial of the
dead and a temple of the sun[199] are equally applicable or inapplicable
to the Tongan monument. In favour of the mortuary character of this
solitary trilithon it might be urged that the Tongans were long
accustomed to erect megalithic monuments, though of a different type, at
the tombs of their sacred kings, which are situated not many miles away;
but against this view it may be argued