BUILDINGS AND BUNGALOWS. 14! 



inches. The earth best suited for the manufacture 

 of bricks should contain a mixture of about five 

 parts of pure clay to one of sand. Almost any kind 

 of earth will do more or less well, provided it is 

 free from pebbles and not too sandy." 



To make good bricks, however, is a science in 

 itself which cannot be taught in a paragraph. The 

 top strata of vegetable earth is removed from the 

 ground intended to be used as material, and the 

 subsoil is then flooded with water and worked up 

 by the feet of cattle or elephants into the con- 

 sistency of dough. It is next pressed into damped 

 wooden moulds, and slipped out of them to dry on 

 a previously levelled space, where the bricks must 

 be protected from sun and wind. They are built 

 up with abundance of firewood to be fired into 

 clumps six or seven feet high, a week being devoted 

 to burning, and another allowed during which they 

 are cooling. 



A brick-built house is comfortable and sub- 

 stantial, but it is not a practical possibility in every 

 district, owing to the care and skilled labour re- 

 quired. Bungalows built of weather-boarding are 

 the commonest for a variety of reasons. Not the 

 least important of these lies in the fact that every 

 native village has a professional carpenter and his 

 " hands," who are quite capable of satisfying the 

 planter's first needs in this direction ; and a word 

 from the estate's local native agent in the plains 

 will send them trooping up to the jungle, on pay 



