CHAP. XXXI.] NATIVE HOUSES AND HABITS. 231 



each coutaining fifteen such hottles, -which the inmates 

 of a house will sit round day and night till they have 

 finished. They themselves tell me that at such bouts they 

 often tear to pieces the house they are in, break and 

 destroy everything they can lay their hands on, and make 

 such an infernal riot as is alarming to behold. 



The houses and furniture are on a par with the food. 

 A rude shed, supported on rough and slender sticks rather 

 than posts, no walls, but the floor raised to within a foot 

 of the eaves, is the style of architecture they usually 

 adopt. Inside there are partition walls of thatch, forming 

 little boxes or sleeping places, to accommodate the two (jr 

 three separate families that usually live together. A few 

 mats, baskets, and cooking vessels, with plates and basins 

 purchased from the Macassar traders, constitute their 

 whole furniture ; spears and bows are their weapons ; a 

 sarong or mat forms the clothing of the women, a waist- 

 cloth of the men. For hours or even for days they sit 

 idle in their houses, the women bringing in the vegetables 

 or sago which form their food. Sometimes they hunt or 

 fish a little, or work at their houses or canoes, but they 

 seem to enjoy pure idleness, and work as little as they 

 can. They have little to vary the monotony of life, little 

 that can be called pleasure, except idleness and conver- 

 sation. And they certainly do talk ! Every evening there 

 is a little Babel around me : but as I understand not a 



