ONE CURIOUS BUILDING. 163 



Blackwood and myself to stroll about the huts 

 unattended, while they bartered with the boat's crew. 

 We found in the court-yard of one hut, a ship's 

 cabin-door, painted green, and not very old ; in 

 another, a quaker gun, set upright in the ground, 

 and the men said they saw pieces of "Queen's 

 line" among them. They had used pieces of iron 

 hoops, and a long iron spike, to open the cocoa- 

 nuts, but these they might have procured from 

 passing vessels. The door and the wooden gun, 

 however, must have come from a wreck. 



At the south end of the huts we came to a building 

 much superior to, and different from, any of the 

 rest. It was like a Malay house unfinished, or 

 one of their own smaller huts raised on posts to 

 a height of six or seven feet. The point of the 

 gable was at least fifteen feet from the ground, the 

 roof being supported at each end by two stout posts, 

 about a yard apart, having their tops ornamented 

 by carved grotesque faces, painted red, white, and 

 black, with much carving and painting below. 

 The lower part, or ground-floor, of this building 

 was open all round, except at one end, where a 

 broad, rudely-constructed staircase led to a platform, 

 from which went the entrance to the upper story : 

 this was floored with stout sticks, and at this end 

 covered with mats ; this part was also partitioned 

 off from the other by a bamboo screen. Under the 

 roof hung old cocoa-nuts, green boughs, and other 

 similar things, but nothing to give a decided clue 



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