362 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



to each oilier ; and as each piece is very hght, a house can, 

 at any time, be removed from one situation to another with 

 great ease; sometimes the roofs are semi-circular. The 

 value of one of these moveable houses is stated to be not 

 more than the price of five or six fowls, and in five minutes 

 may be put together. Permanent houses, however, such 

 as those of the Chenoo, are made of the palm leaves with 

 considerable skill, having several posts along the sides and 

 ends, and covered externally with the blades or back rib 

 of the palm leaf, bound together with a creeping plant in 

 regular zig-zag figures. They are also generally inclosed 

 within a fence of reeds matted together. 



Their household utensils are very few, and as simple as 

 the houses themselves. Baskets made of the fibres of the 

 palm tree ; bowls and bottles of gourds or calabashes, or of 

 the shell of the monkey bread-fruit (Adansonia) to hold 

 their provisions and water, earthen vessels of their own mak- 

 ing to boil their victuals, and wooden spoons to eat them ; a 

 mat of grass thrown on a raised platform of palm-leaves, 

 their only bedding. The articles of dress are equally 

 sparing and simple, the common people being satisfied with 

 a small apron tied round their loins, of a piece of baft, 

 if they can get it, or of native grass-matting, made by the 

 men ; of the same grass they make caps, whose surface is 

 raised and figured in a very beautiful manner, and the tex- 

 ture so close that they will hold water. Rings of brass or 

 iron are welded on the arms and ankles, and sometimes 

 bracelets of lion's teeth ; and the women generally contrive 



