T14 
four curious and conspicuous structures, in close proximity 
to the roadway. At first they seemed to be huge hay- 
stacks, the stored herbage of Tiber’s fertile delta, but 
nearer inspection proved them to be houses. It was 
quickly evident, too, that they did not lack inhabitants, 
for a number of women and children flocked from an 
opening in the eastern end of the largest structure, and 
stood awaiting my approach. Iwas so strongly reminded 
of the ‘‘ Long House” of the Onondaga Indians as given 
by Morgan (after Bartram) in his ‘‘ House Life of the 
American Aborigines,” that I handed my reins to a young 
man who had approached expectantly and entered the 
open doorway; men and women coming forward with 
alacrity to show me the interior economy. I was told 
that this, with the three additional structures, were the 
dwellings of the laborers on the Aldobrandini estate, and 
that about 70 of the total population of about 250 found 
in this house their home. Its form is best shown by the 
accompanying sketches made in my note book on the 
‘spot. It is 110 feet long, about 26 feet wide, and is drawn 
to a comb about 4o feet above the ground. Vertical and 
horizontal poles form the framework, upon which are 
fastened osier walls, overlaid by flags and reeds gathered 
from the neighboring lagoons, thus producing a wind and 
rain proof covering. ‘The storms and sunshine of years 
falling upon this thatch of water plants gradually change 
their color until the exterior is as black as a stack of clover 
hay. Only two openings, one at each end, admit you to this 
windowless house, and these are closed at night by heavy 
plank doors that are swung together and securely barred. 
In the corner to the left was a pile of dry faggots, the 
common property of the community. ‘This fuel is burned 
upon a hearth that occupies a central point upon the 
earthen floor. Over a smouldering fire on this hearth 
a brass kettle was simmering, and a wreath of smoke 
ascended into the gloomy chimneyless upper-spaces. On 
both sides of the middle passage way, and raised about four 
feet above it, was a long platform of rough plank. These 
platforms were divided by board partitions, about three 
feet high, into pens varying in length according to the 
number of persons intended to be accommodated, but 
averaging for each individual a floor space of about two 
feet by eight. Thus to one family of eleven persons was 
apportioned a pen twenty feet long by eight wide, which 
answered for them every purpose of a home: another, 
fifteen feet by eight, was occupied by a father, mother 
and six children. These divisions held the boxes, 
clothing and sleeping arrangements of the family. In 
them children were playing, mothers nursing, and several 
sick persons were lying wrapped in dark woolen blankets. 
I see no reason to believe that this structure, and the 
method of living practised therein, varies essentially from 
that which existed in the Maremma when Pliny possessed 
a villa near this spot, and when Cesar drew his soldiers 
from among the forebears of these Roman peasants. We 
all know how slowly the habits of the lower classes 
change in old countries, and even residences in the most 
enlightened Italian districts show but little development 
since imperial times. Gdéethe relates that after visiting 
Pompeii with Tishbein, in 1787, he entered a neighboring 
occupied dwelling which with its furniture seemed to him 
to resemble perfectly the habitations he had just studied 
in the mummied city, built more than twenty centuries 
ago. Indeed it is possible that this curious Aldobrandini 
dwelling is a survival closely imitating the form of house 
constructed by tribes that dwelt in this valley long before 
“Rome was founded—when the Capitoline hill was a sheep 
fold in the pre-historic period of the Ausonian peninsula. 
This possibility is strengthened by the fact that all the 
materials for the house are of local production, are easy to 
transport and require only the simplest tools to assemble 
SCIENCE. 
Vol. XXIII. No. 578 
and erect, while the result is an enduring and excellent 
shelter. An additional and striking evidence of the 
aboriginal character of the structure is the close parallelism 
shown in the American ‘‘Long House” already men- 
tioned, which was habitually built and inhabited by some 
of our best known savage tribes. For purposes of com- 
parison I have reproduced here Bartram’s sketch of the 
Onondaga ‘‘ Long House,” made on the occasion of his visit 
to attend a council of that tribe in 1743. It was 8o feet 
long and 17 feet wide. A common passage, in which the 
fires were built, ran between two sets of occupied apart- 
ments. These apartments were raised about a foot above 
the level of the passage on two platforms made of hewn 
saplings, that extended along both sides of the house. 
They were formed by erecting bark partitions upon the 
platforms, and one division was allotted to each family. 
Soft pieces of dry bark and sleeping-mats were spread 
upon the rough floor, and a fire for each four apartments 
kept the house warm and served for cooking. Above 
each fire a vent in the roof allowed the smoke to escape. 
Extending over the apartments was a sort of second story 
in which household effects could be deposited. A corner 
in this dwelling was devoted to the common store of fire- 
wood. 
‘‘Long Houses,” resembling the one pictured by 
Bartram, are described by Greenbalge, who visited the 
village of the Iriquois-Senecas near the present site of 
Rochester, in New York, in 1677. One was about roo 
feet in length, made of a strong framework of poles set 
in the ground and covered with strips of elm-bark tied to 
this frame with strings. The living apartments were 
arranged as described in the Onondaga house. Skins, 
forming curtains, hung over the entrances, and from the 
roof were suspended bunches of Indian corn ears with 
their husks braided, and festoons of bits of dried squashes 
and pumpkins strung upon long pieces of cord. 
My visit to this cheerful community in the Tiber delta, 
I regret to say, was too brief to allow me to enter upon 
the study of its domestic economy. Valuable material 
for comparison with the Indian customs would be obtained 
by investigating how far the property and supplies, such 
as firewood and food, are procured and held in common, 
and what household habits had developed to increase the 
convenience and comfort of families crowded into a 
place so restricted. But my destination that day was 
further southward along the blue Mediterranean, to the 
beautiful Castle Fusiano, with its vast domain of towering 
pine trees, where for miles one may gallop over smooth 
roads made fragrant by myrtle and sweet daphne, with 
long level reaches where the shadows are as profound as 
those that darken the primeval forests of the Allegheneys. 
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