CHAP. III.] 



BAH I A TO THE CAFE. 



143 



mountain and laid on the ground to be fashioned, are sometimes 

 tumbled about by the force of the wind. 



They have on the island a few strong spars, mostly the masts 

 of .wrecked vessels, and to get the great blocks up to tlie top of 

 the wall after it has risen to a certain height, they use a long 

 incline, made of a couple of these spars, well greased, up which 

 they slowly drag and shove the blocks, much as they are repre- 

 sented as doing in old times in some of the Egyptian hiero- 

 glyphs. The furniture of the rooms is scanty, owing to the dif- 

 ficulty of procuring wood ; but passing ships seem to furnish 



Fig. 35. — Cyclopean Architecture, Tristan Island. \,Fiovi a photograph.) 



enough of woven fabrics to supply bedding, and in the better 

 cottages some little drapery, and to enable the people, and par- 

 ticularly the women, to dress in a comfortable and seemly style. 

 Low stone-walls partition the land round the cottages into small 

 inclosures, which are cultivated as gardens, and where all the 

 ordinary European vegetables thrive fairly. There is no fruit 

 of any kind on the island. The largest cultivated tract is on 

 the flat, about half a mile from " Edinburgh." There the greater 

 part of the potatoes are grown, and the cattle and sheep have 

 their head-quarters. The goods of the colonists are in no sense 

 in common ; each has his own property in land and in stock. 

 A new-comer receives a grant of a certain extent of land, and 



