348 . ARCHEOLOGY. 



abode. In watered plains, the peninsula formed by the confluence 

 of two rivers or by the windingf^ of the stream offered inducements 

 for a residence, while those who inhabited countries strewn with 

 lakes, like Switzerland and Savoy, abandoned the dry land and built 

 their huts in the midst of the waters, at some distance from the shore. 

 Here they found the surest mqans of guarding against sudden attack, 

 with the advantage of being able to transport themselves at pleasure 

 in their canoes to every point of the coast, their rude structures serv- 

 ing at the same time as stations for fishing. Perhaps, also, in 

 choosing the surface of the lakes as a sojourn, they obeyed that irre- 

 sistible attraction which allures every infant colony towards the wa- 

 ter. At all the epochs of history, and in all parts of the world, the 

 requirements of defence and the facilities of fishing, joined with the 

 natural charm of ])eauty in sheets of water, have determined many 

 tribes of men to build their habitations, whether of boughs or of 

 reeds, above the surface of the waves. There are Assyrian bas-re- 

 liefs, which show us men inhabiting artificial isles formed of inter- 

 laced reeds, and, according to Hippocrates, the colonists of the 

 Phasis, whom the fishermen of the Volga imitate to this day, raised 

 their huts of rushes in the midst of the river. A well-known passage 

 of Herodotus informs us that the Pajonians of Thrace likewise built 

 their villages on piles driven into the soil of the shallows of Lake 

 Prasias. In our own day the Malays and Chinese established at 

 Bankok and on the coasts of Borneo construct tlieir houses on posts 

 planted in the water at some distance from the shore. Again, when 

 the Spaniards discovered the lagoon of Maracaibo they were sur- 

 prised at seeing a city on piles, a diminutive Venice of wood, to 

 which one of the republics of Colombia owes its present name of 

 Venezuela.* 



It would be easy, even if all the structures of this kind existing in 

 difi'erent parts of the world furnished no medium of comparison, to 

 rebuild in thought, by help of the numerous relics found at the bot- 

 tom of lakes, the lacustrian cottages of ancient Helvetia. A mere 

 glance of the eye through the transparent water enables us to per- 

 ceive piles in parallel rows, or planted, it may be, without order. 

 The charred beams which are seen between the posts recall the plat- 

 form once solidly constructed at a height of some feet above the waves. 

 The interlaced boughs, the fragments of clay hardened by fire, evi- 

 dently belonged to circular walls, and the conic roofs are represented 

 by some layers or beds of reeds, straw and bark. The stones of the 

 fire-place have fallen just below the place which they formerly occu- 

 pied. The vessels of clay, the heaps of leaves and of moss which 

 served as beds for repose, the arms, the trophies of the chase> the 

 large stag horns and skulls of wild bulls which adorned the walls, all 

 these difierent objects, mingled together in the mud, are nothing else 

 but the ancient furniture of the habitations. By the side of the 



• 



*The eramioges of Ireland, some of which were still inhabited so late as 1610, differed 

 from the lacustrian settlements of Switzerland ; they were real wooden fortresses built on 

 artificial islets. 



