t 



1867.] 331 [Bickmore. 



room by hanging up mats. Most of the houses have no floors, but 

 instead the sand is covered with mats of coarse straw ; on one side 

 of the room there is a platform of boards on stones or blocks of 

 wood, where the occupants lounge and sleep. They usually sit on 

 the mats on the sand. In the centre of the room the fire is made 

 on the sand, and over this and about three feet above it, is a kind of 

 frame-work held up b}' strings fi-om the rafters, where they place the 

 fish they wish to smoke. It also serves for a cupboard or dresser, 

 where the smaller iron pans and kettles may be jiut away. There is 

 no chimney, and I did not even see a hole in the roof for the smoke 

 to escape. Everything overhead is, therefore, black with smoke, and 

 generally has a shining, oily appearance. Each house is provided 

 with a few iron pans and kettles of Japanese manufacture, and these, 

 with two or three wooden dipj)ers, and some large valves of the Pec- 

 ten, comprise their cooking utensils. Tliey make a fire by means of 

 a flint, steel and tinder, which are usually kept in a bag of undressed 

 deer skin. In several houses I saw a considerable number of lac- 

 quered dishes, which they had evidently obtained from the Japanese. 

 Near each house there is another small one about eight feet square, 

 perched on a platform five or six feet high, in which they store their 

 fish, in much the same way as the natives of Sumatra preserve their 

 rice. In the first house we entered, the man was seated cross-legged 

 in one corner making spears, with a fire of charcoal and a Japanese 

 bellows. The woman was crouched near the fire, twisting up thin 

 strips of the inner layer of the bark of a ti-ee into a continuous line of the 

 size of a mackerel line. It is from such material, and in this way, that 

 all the lines for their fishing nets are made. They had four children; 

 all boys, the youngest two and the eldest ten. The two younger ones had 

 no clothing on whatever, and the other two were only provided with 

 a long jacket though it was ijuite chilly. With such exposure evi- 

 dently a large proportion of their children must perish. 



In the next house we entered — the dimensions of which I have given 

 above as a model — we found an old man, his son, and three women. 

 The old man said he was seventy-five, and his white hair and white 

 beard made it appear probable, yet a young woman, apparently of 

 twenty, was presented to me as his wife. She was demurely at work 

 in one corner, making a straw mat after the Japanese style. The 

 other young woman was weaving a piece of coarse cloth about ten 

 inches wide, from strings made of bark as already described. These 

 strings, which represented the warp, were fiistened at one end to a 

 post and at the other end to a board which she kept leaning against 

 while she changed them and pushed through the filling and pressed 

 it down Avith a sharp-edged board. This kind of cloth seems to be 

 the only one they have, and it is all made in this sIoav and laborious 



