48 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
means of the same device as our gardeners employ at 
home, a tight string tied from peg to peg, only that in 
this case a sort of bast or fibre is used instead of string. 
There are clucking fowls with small chicks about them, 
carefully housed in large hencoops made of withes and 
grass to protect the chickens from their many enemies ; 
and for the hens to lay in, and the fowls to roost in at 
night, neat little hen-houses are raised on posts, out of the 
reach of snakes. 
ZA WN Ii 
Z > AA VAN mV 
re oe 
Dus Cau TaD 
a 
wt 
AASB 22 pane ca eet en a a 
Dateien’ 
| 
—~: 
We 
ills = 
pega RE 
CONGO HOUSE. 
In a rough sort of shanty, constructed principally of 
overlaid palm-fronds, are the goats and the sheep (the 
sheep are of the usual Central African stock, with short 
hairy coats, supplemented in the ram by a splendid silky 
mane from his chin to his stomach); and even, rarely, we 
may see a black high-shouldered bullock stalled in a not 
ill-fashioned manger made of the same material. | 
The houses are well and neatly built, generally raised a 
foot above the ground on a platform of beaten earth. 
There is first of all a framework of stout poles, one 
very long pole forming the apex of the slanting and 
wide-spreading roof, and on this is fixed a covering of 
thin laths and dried grass. The roof extends some 
feet beyond the body of the house, and in front is 
