54 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



main post is finished, go on with the others, but be sure to do it in 

 regular order, working round in circles from right to left, so as to fol- 

 low the line of the dragon's body from head to tail. When it comes 

 to the hoisting of the posts into position, the face must throughout be 

 turned toward the back of the Nagah, a little inclining toward the tail, 

 and the post must be heaved up toward this point of the compass. 

 Thus in the first three months of the year you must face west-south- 

 west, and haul up the beam from the northeast, and so on for the other 

 quarters. It is also necessary to be very careful in the selection of the 

 timber for the house. Trees especially to be avoided are those which 

 have no flowers, those which have no leaves, trees which grow on ant- 

 hills, trees with birds' nests on them, and those from which the bark 

 has been torn off from whatever cause. Unhappily these distinctions 

 are not obvious in timber which you have not cut yourself, and rascally 

 Chinese carpenters will not hesitate to palm off upon the unwary 

 wood from a tree on which scores of egrets the Byeing, or sacred 

 paddy-bird of the Talaings have nested. Chinamen in their way are 

 nearly as unscrupulous as Manchester piece-goods manufacturers, and 

 have as little regard for the comfort and ultimate opinion of their cus- 

 tomers. The beams for the house must all be measured with the 

 standard of your own hand. This, however, is a detail which hardly 

 needs to be strongly urged in a country where the three-foot rule is 

 unknown. After you have got the posts up, the surface of the ground 

 must be smoothed down, and then the posts are decorated with little 

 bags of shells, coins, husked rice, and the like. These must be hung 

 up by the hands of a maiden, and not by any rude male. The heads 

 of the posts are also covered over with cloth, for the safe keeping of 

 the guardian spirit of the house. It would be neither seemly nor safe 

 to leave him exposed to the elements. The final ramming in of the 

 posts is done at an hour fixed by the astrologers, the culminating point 

 of some happy constellation. There is much shouting and feasting on 

 the occasion. 



With the foundation of his house settled satisfactorily, the sensi- 

 bilities of the great world-dragon and the guardian spirit of the earth 

 soothed and conciliated, and the house-posts raised and decorated with 

 proper profusion, the house-builder may consider himself past all his 

 troubles. If anything has been done wrong, it is now too late to re- 

 pair the error. If everything has been carried out in seemly and or- 

 derly fashion, he may deem himself particularly fortunate. The put- 

 ting on of the roof and the fitting up of the plank or split bamboo 

 matting walls is a simple matter, and may be done according to the 

 light of nature and with what dilatoriness and adornments the builder 

 pleases, so long as he does not depart from the mundane laws of use 

 and wont and infringe upon the sumptuary regulations. That is even 

 a greater offense than flouting the great Nakh, or setting up posts in 

 defiance of the angel of the soil. It certainly meets with swifter 



