272 DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSE. 



ways, having the form of a gothic arch, the centre 

 being the largest. The inside of the house looked 

 just like a great tunnel. Down each side was 

 a row of cabins : each of these was of a square 

 form, projecting about ten feet, having walls of 

 bamboo reaching from the floor to the roof, and 

 accessible at the side by a small door very neatly 

 made of split bamboo. Inside these cabins we 

 found low frames, covered with mats, apparently 

 bed places, and over head were shelves and pegs on 

 which were bows and arrows, baskets, stone axes, 

 drums, and other matters. In each cabin was a 

 fire-place (a patch of clay), over which was a small 

 frame of sticks, as before mentioned, about two feet 

 high, three feet long, and a foot wide, as if for 

 hanging something to cook or dry over the fire. A 

 stock of dry fire-wood was also observed in each 

 cabin on a shelf over head. One or two of these 

 fire-places were also scattered about in different 

 parts of the sides of the house. Between each two 

 cabins was a small doorway, about three feet high, 

 closed by a neatly made door or shutter of split 

 bamboo, from which a little ladder gave access to 

 the ground outside the house. At each end of the 

 house was the stage or balcony mentioned before, 

 being merely the open ends of the floor outside the 

 end walls, on which the cross poles were bare or not 

 covered with planks. The roof, however, projected 

 over these stages, both at the sides, and much more 

 overhead, protruding forward at the gable, some- 



