A landscape photograph of two women, probably Tongan, standing in front of the righthand standing stone of the trilithon (stone arch), with thick vegtation in the background. The two women may have been chosen by the photographer to illustrate the size of the monument or perhaps as an exercise in ethnographic photography.

This famous arch is still standing on the island of Tongatapu in Tonga. It is known as Ha'amonga 'a Maui and was probably built as part of a royal compound in the 1200s (although there are also legends that it was made by Maui, an important figure in Pacific mythology). Ha'amonga 'a Maui has been compared to Stonehenge in Wiltshire but the two structures were built thousands of years apart and for different purposes.

The photograph is captioned 'Another view of above' - referring to the previous photograph captioned 'Ancient monoliths. Tongatabu. Friendly Islands.'

Dr R. W. Coppinger records HMS Alert visiting Tongatapu between 8 and 18 November 1880. Prince Wellington took a few officers to see the monument, and he described them in his book 'The monument—if such it can be called—consists of three large slabs of coral rock, two of which are planted vertically in the ground at a distance of about fifteen feet apart, while the third forms a horizontal span, resting on its edges in slots made in the summits of the vertical slabs. The height of the structure, of which the picture gives a good idea, is about fifteen feet. We were, I regret to say, unable to obtain any information—legendary or otherwise—concerning the origin of this remarkable structure.' [page 173]. The picture mentioned above is an engraved version of this photograph and is given the caption 'ANCIENT STONE MONUMENT AT TONGATABU'.