UNDERGEOTTND RESIDENCES. 3 



Except, however, that the walls of these houses are carved 

 from the living rock, instead of being built up by successive series 

 of stones or bricks, there is nothing in them which differs from 

 the ordinary dwellings raised by builders, so that in reality 

 they have little in common with the rock habitations of savage 

 tribes. 



If the country in which the earth-dweUer is placed should 

 not be of a rocky or stony character, affording no caverns already 

 excavated by the hand of nature, the savage is obliged to do vio- 

 lence to his temperament, and to set to work. Furnished as he is 

 with the most miserable of tools — ^his usual implement, a stick 

 with a sharpened end charred in the fire to make it harder — ^he can 

 make but little progress, humble though the task may be. The 

 sandy nature of the soil in which he is generally placed offers 

 but little resistance to the rude tool with which he labours, and 

 as the savage is content with a mere apology for a dwelling-place, 

 his task is soon accomplished. If he desires to be peculiarly 

 comfortable, he may stick a few dried bushes on the windward 

 side of the hole, and hang a skin on them ; but it is only on 

 very wet and windy days that he will take so much trouble. 



All subterranean dwellings are not of this simple nature. 

 The underground palaces of India are wonderful examples of 

 workmanship ; but then they are nothing more or less than 

 buildings placed below the level of the ground, and inhabited in 

 the hot season by the luxurious. Even in such cases, however, 

 the inherent defects of an underground dwelling make them- 

 selves painfully apparent. The rooms, though cool, are close 

 and depressing in the extreme. Ventilation cannot be properly 

 accomplished — ^the coolness is but the damp chUHness of a cellar, 

 and brings no invigorating freshness to the languid frame, so 

 that the edifice is only inhabited occasionally for the sake of 

 grandeur, and the owner gladly retreats to the upper air, where he 

 seeks the needed coolness by means of fans and evaporating water. 



Human habitations, however, do not come within the scope 

 of the present work, which is restricted to those homes that are 

 constructed without the aid of hands, and axe planned, not by 

 reason, but by instinct. We pass, therefore, from the handiwork 

 of man to those dwellings which are constructed with feet or 

 jaws or beaks, and which are never marred by incompetence or 

 improved by practice. 



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