THE HINTER RISS. 343 



These dwellings are mere log-huts, in one corner of 

 which, beside the entrance, there is a sort of hole 

 about a foot deep. This is the fireplace. A few stones 

 are piled around it, to protect the wooden walls from the 

 blaze, while it is on the ground itself that the fire is 

 lighted. You sit on the floor of the hut, with your feet 

 on this rude hearth ; and the smoke — for there is no such 

 thing as chimney — curls round your face, often causing 

 your eyes to burn and tingle. This is the place of re- 

 sort for whoever has an idle moment : he steps down in 

 the little pit, warms his bare knees at the cheerful blaze, 

 fills his wooden pipe for the hundredth time, takes in his 

 hand a red-hot cinder which he presses into the bowl, 

 and then puffs away until the hour for milking or some 

 other duty has arrived ; unless drawn away beforehand 

 from his ingle nook by the appearance of a goat or a 

 cow looking in at the doorway, when up he jumps, and 

 with screams and threats and denunciations scares the 

 animal back again to the pasture. 



The rafters and all the upper part of the interior are, 

 of course, blackened by the smoke. Dust and dirt lie 

 thickly on every spot. A door at the back leads to a 

 cellar, generally a few feet lower than the floor of the 

 outer dwelling, where the cheeses and pans of milk are 

 kept. Here all is clean. 



The sole furniture of the hut we stopped at consisted 

 of two large iron frying-pans and six battered iron spoons, 

 for everybody's use, which a strip of tin kept in their 

 places on one of the logs j nst above the hearth. A large 

 pail of fresh water is always to be found standing against 

 the wall, with a small wooden bowl or copper ladle hang- 

 ing near, out of which each comer drinks when hap- 

 pening to be athirst. In the cellar, beside the milk and 

 cream, are mountains of butter on clean wooden platters : 



