5 l 4 



The National Geographic Magazine 



GOAT HERDER'S HOUSE IN TEXAS 



down to the disappearance of the forests, 

 from forty to fifty years ago. I well re- 

 call a rush-built lodge on Bogue Banks, 

 long used as a lookout for whales, which, 

 its hoary occupant told me, had replaced 

 a tall tree-top lookout of considerable 

 dimensions. 



While the great tree-top habitations 

 have practically disappeared from the 

 tall trees there, lookouts of less signifi- 

 cance may still be seen where the tall 

 pines come down to the water's edge 

 along the western border of Currituck 

 Sound, and I recall one such at Kitty 

 Hawk. Within five years I have also 

 seen them on Jew's Quarter Island, Bell 

 Island, Church's Island, Colleton Island, 

 and at several points on the Currituck 

 marshes. 



Straw-thatched lodges are also fre- 

 quently built along this same western 

 border, when trees do not afford the nec- 

 essary height. They are no longer used 

 by pirates and wreckers watching for 

 their prey, nor by whalemen seeking big 

 game in the sea. The laws permit hunt- 

 ing in the sound on only four days in 

 the week, and these lesser tree dwellings 

 are occupied by old hunters on Wednes- 



days and Saturdays, for here they may 

 watch the passage of wild fowl. 



It is in this region, too, that the hunter 

 who expects to be away from home for 

 a few nights only makes his nest of 

 rushes under a bush and possibly throws 

 around him an additional bush or two, 

 or, perhaps, a few leaves from the fan 

 palmetto, so abundant on Colleton Island. 

 If he expects to spend some time in the 

 neighborhood, he makes a low rude frame 

 with bushes, covering it with brush or 

 with palmetto leaves, after the manner 

 of the pygmies. 



It is also in Currituck Sound that the 

 lake dwellings are encountered. These are 

 not for temporary occupation, but are 

 the permanent homes of their builders, 

 who occupy them with their families all 

 the year round. They are built on piles 

 in the sound, which is now a living lake, 

 as the entering streams have leached out 

 the salt since the closing of the inlets that 

 afforded communication with the sea. 

 One such house I mentioned in my pre- 

 vious article as having been moved before 

 an advancing sandwave and finally built 

 on piles in the sound ; but there are many 

 others built originally as lake dwellings. 



