236 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF NEW ZEALAND CHAP, x 



with the bark of trees on the inside, and many have either 

 over the door or somewhere in the house a plank covered 

 with their carving, which they seem to value much 

 as we do a picture, placing it always as conspicuously 

 as possible. All these houses have the door at one end ; 

 and near it is a square hole which serves as a window 

 or probably in winter time more as a chimney ; for then 

 they light a fire at the end where this door and window 

 are placed. The side walls and roof project generally eighteen 

 inches or two feet beyond the end wall, making a kind 

 of porch, where are benches on which the people of the 

 house often sit. Within is a square place fenced off with 

 either boards or stones from the rest, in the middle 

 of which they can make a fire ; the sides of the house are 

 thickly laid with straw, on which they sleep. As for furni- 

 ture, they are not much troubled with it; one chest com- 

 monly contains all their riches, consisting of tools, cloths, 

 arms, and a few feathers to stick into their hair ; their 

 gourds or baskets made of bark, which serve them to keep 

 fresh water, their provision baskets, and the hammers with 

 which they beat their fern roots, are generally left without 

 the door. 



Mean and low as these houses are, they most perfectly 

 resist all inclemencies of the weather, and answer con- 

 sequently the purposes of mere shelter as well as larger 

 ones would do. The people, I believe, spend little of the day 

 in them (except maybe in winter) ; the porch seems to 

 be the place for work, and those who have not room there 

 must sit upon a stone, or on the ground in the neighbourhood. 



Some few families of the better sort have a kind of court- 

 yard, the walls of which are made of poles and hay, ten or 

 twelve feet high, and which, as their families are large, encloses 

 three or four houses. But I must not forget the ruins, or 

 rather frame of a house (for it had never been finished), 

 which I saw at Tolaga, as it was so much superior in size 

 to anything of the kind we have met with in any other 

 part of the land. It was 3 feet in length, 1 5 in breadth, and 

 1 2 high ; the sides of it were ornamented with many broad 



