196 VOTAGE IN SEARCH 



parts of the foreft ; they were all nearly in the 

 form of a bee-hive, and were three meters high 

 by as many wide. (See Plate XXXVllI. Fig 

 28j 29. and 30 J 



Figure 28, reprefents one of thefe huts fur- 

 rounded by a palifade a meter and a half high, 

 made with the leaf-fialks of cocoa-nut trees, 

 laid very clofe to each other, and fixed into 

 the ground at the diflance of eleven decimeters 

 from the fides of the hut. Thefe alfo ferved 

 to form a little pafTage before the door. 



We afterwards remarked a great many huts 

 which were not furrounded by palifades. (See 

 Fig, 29.) The door, which was a meter high by 

 a demi-meter wide, was fometimes Ihut by 

 means of the point of a cocoa-nut leaf, the 

 leaflets of which were interwoven. Several of 

 thefe doors had two upright pofls made of 

 planks, at the upper end of which was carved, 

 rather rudely, the head CiUa man. The lower 

 part of the habitations, which was raifed per- 

 pendicularly to the height of a meter, v/as fur- 

 mounted by a pretty regular cone, terminated 

 by the extremity of a flake riling in the 

 centre of r>ie floor. 



Figure 30. reprefents the infide of it. The 

 frame was made of poles faflened to the upper 

 extremity of a flake driven into the centerof the 

 floor, and the bafe of which was two thirds of a 



decimeter 



