Chap. XL V. NATIVE ARCHITECTURE. 
249 
made out, almost everything that was liable to take 
fire having been destroyed, and especially the sheds 
and inner courtyards, which are so characteristic of 
the domestic life of these people. At present it- 
was an empty courtyard of a tolerably round shape, 
and of large circumference, surrounded by huts 
more or less destroyed, and adorned at the four 
corners, if we may speak of corners in a building of 
almost round shape, by buildings of a very peculiar 
and remarkable character, which at once attracted my 
attention, as they bore testimony to a degree of order, 
and even of art, which I had not expected to find 
among these tribes. 
They were small round rumbii, about eight feet in 
diameter, and at least twelve feet high to the apex of 
the cupola, the clay walls of which were very neatly 
polished; the entrance formed a projecting portal 
about six feet high, four feet deep, and not more than 
fourteen inches wide. The exterior, 
to the very top of the cupola, was 
ornamented in a very peculiar man- 
ner by regular lines of projecting 
ribs running round the building in 
the way represented in the woodcut, 
These very remarkable rooms, al- 
though at present empty, from their 
analogy with several buildings described above, and 
according to the statements of the people, were no- 
thing but well protected granaries, although they 
might have served occasionally in the cold season as 
