Nezu Caledonian Ho7ises. 



65 



colonization where the same year the Spanish discoverer died, and for many years this 

 archipelago has been a field for attempts at colonization by the French, it is surpris- 

 ing that so much still remains unaltered by grafted customs and fashions; that we 

 have anything to call aboriginal. Plate XXIII shows two forms of rude hut on Santo. 



FIG. 59. THATCHING A HOUSE IN THE NEW HEBRIDES. 



New Caledonia. — Passing for a moment the Solomon Islands, also a dis- 

 covery of Mendana on a previous voyage, we must notice the curious and divergent 

 houses of the French colony of New Caledonia. In the voyage of D'Entrecasteaux 

 in search of La Perouse is the most detailed account of the houses of the New Cale- 

 donians, but the illustration is poor and the description too imperfect to show much 

 more than that the modern habitations of these people are essentially the same that 

 existed four generations ago: a circular hut with a conical roof without terminal orna- 

 ment (see Cook, below), covered on both sides and roof with grass thatch, and with 

 fairly high door, of which the jambs are often decorated with carving. Cook gives us 

 the better account, in fact the best we have of the New Caledonian houses of the olden 

 time, before foreign fashions had affedled them (Second Voyage, II, 121): 



Memoirs B. P. B. Museum. Vol. II. No. 3.-5. L249J 



