MORLAY HALL. 33 



six feet in length, the standard height being six feet. When dry, earthen 

 walls are usually smoothened with a plaster of red earth mixed with sand. 

 House -walls thus built are cheap, strong, and quickly run up; the only 

 disadvantage connected with them is that white-ants are apt to work up 

 through them into the roof of the house. This can, however, be easily 

 prevented by a single course of brick-in-moriar upon the top of the wall. 



The roof of my bungalow consists of a single areca-nut tree, fifty feet 

 long, as a ridge-pole, and bamboo rafters which rest upon the walls. Over 

 these are bamboo mats to prevent the ends of the grass with wliich it is 

 thatched hanging down inside, and a layer of one foot of rice-straw makes 

 it quite water-tight. The floor is of concrete to keep out white-ants, and is 

 covered with bamboo mats. 



" Morlay Hall," as I named this edifice, is situated about a quarter of 

 a mile to the east of Morlay, on the site of a deserted village called 

 Byadamooll, which is now only marked by irregular mounds and lines 

 where the houses were, and by an old stone temple and some fine banian 

 and peepul {Ficus religiosa) trees. The village ceased to exist fifty years 

 ago. There are many such, thus deserted, of various degrees of antiquity, 

 further in the jungles. I shall have occasion to speak of them further on, 

 and to consider the probable causes which led to their abandonment. 



My bungalow faces eastwards, towards the Billiga-rungun hills, which 

 are eight miles distant and extend for twenty miles in front of me. They 

 attain an elevation of about 6000 feet, or 3500 feet above the general 

 level of the country around Morlay. Between my house and the hills the 

 jungle consists chiefly of bamboo clumps and moderate-sized trees, with 

 thick covers (the favourite resort of tigers, wild hog, &c.) on the river-banks 

 and in the damp hollows. A few low detached hills lie near the foot of the 

 range, and afford cover to bears and panthers. Parallel with the hills runs 

 the Honhollay, a river about thirty yards broad, which, though rarely dry, 

 is only a considerable stream at intervals during the rainy season. It then 

 sometimes rises twenty feet above its bed, but is seldom impassable for 

 more than a day together. During the first freshes of the rainy season 

 it brings down large quantities of wood and bamboos, and the water is 

 discoloured by the charcoal and black ashes washed from the hills after the 

 hot- weather conflagrations. The water is considered bad within the jungles 

 at this time, and also in December and January ; but at all other times it 

 is good. The reason of its being unwholesome in January and February is, 

 that the hill streams have then shrunk almost to their lowest limits, and 

 the leaves of the forest-trees which fall at the end of the year rot in large 

 quantities in the water, and thus contaminate it by decaying vegetabK 



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