Tahiti in Cook^s Time. 9 



of them are walled with wickering but not so close but to admit a free circulation of Air. The matts 

 which serve them to sit upon in the daytime are also their beds iu the night, and the Cloathes thej' 

 wear in the day serve for cov^ering, a little wood Stool, block of wood, or bundle of Cloth for a Pillow. 

 Besides these common houses there are others much larger, 200 feet long and upwards, 30 broad, and 

 20 in heigth. There are generally two or three of these in every district, and .seeni'd not only built 

 for the accommodation of the principal people, but common to all the inhabitants of that district, and 

 raised and kept up by their joint labour ; these are always without walls, and have generally a large 

 Area on one side neatly enclosed with low pallisades, etc. 



FIG. 6. TONGAX IXTKKKJR ( \'UVAGE UE L'ASTKOI.AHE, PL. 75). 



With Cook was the young artist Parkinson (who did not live to complete the 

 voyage), and he gives lis a pi(5lure of the house of a Tahitian chief which is so remark- 

 able a deviation from Polynesian domestic architedlure that, were it not for his accuracy 

 of draughtmanship in other things, might be treated as a creature of his imaginationr 

 He gives no description but the view shows clearly the outside of a high house with a 

 barrel-vaulted roof/' The framing seems to be on the outside and the thatch within. 

 The "Area on one side" which Cook mentions is clearly shown (Fig. 5). 



''Parkinson saj-s in ;i note : Taotiiluiu's house is one hun.lred anil twenty yards long, anil twenty yards broad: 

 the roof is supported bv twenty posts each nineteen feet high." Parkinson's Journal, p. 55. 



[193J 



