1770 CANALS AND HOUSES 379 
am inclined to believe this, as I remember a dead buffalo 
lying in one of the principal thoroughfares for more than a 
week, until it was at last carried away by a flood. 
The houses are in general large and well built, and con- 
veniently enough contrived for the climate. The greater part 
of the ground-floor is always laid out in one large room with 
a door to the street and another to the yard, both which 
generally stand open. Below is the ground-plan of one. 
| | | 
{ c | | . é 
a t 
In this plan a is the front door, 0, the back door, ¢, a room 
where the master of the house does his business, d, a court 
to give light to the rooms as well as increase the draught, 
and ¢, the stairs for going upstairs, where the rooms are 
generally large though few in number. Such, in general, 
are their town houses, differing in size very much, and some- 
times in shape; the principles, however, on which they are 
built are universally the same, two doors opposite each other, 
and one or more courts between them to cause a draught, 
which they do in an eminent degree, as well as dividing the 
room into alcoves, in one of which the family dine, while 
the female slaves (who on no occasion sit anywhere else) 
work in another. Showy, however, as these large rooms are 
to the stranger on his first seeing them, he is soon sensible 
of the small amount of furniture which is universal in all 
of them. The same quantity of furniture is sufficient for 
them as is necessary for our smaller rooms in Europe, as in 
those we entertain fully as many guests at a time as is ever 
done in these; consequently the chairs, which are spread at 
even distances from each other, are not very easily collected 
into a circle if four or five visitors arrive at once. 
Public buildings they have several, most of them old and 
executed in rather a clumsy taste. Their new church, how- 
