SITE OF LITAKUN. — CLUSTERS OF HOUSES. 
513 
of a red color. This plain, the surface of which is not, however, per- 
fectly level, appeared, from the number of stumps and stems of trees 
every where standing, to have been originally a grove of moMlas, 
or camelthorns ; all of which, excepting here and there a single 
tree, had been cut down for the purposes of building the houses, and 
for fuel. A town of similar construction can, it seems, be erected 
only in a wood or grove, in which, therefore, houses take the place of 
trees ; and consequently it cannot conveniently, and I believe, never 
is, on a subsequent removal, re-erected exactly on the same place where 
it formerly stood. This may with great probability be supposed as the 
reason why the present Litakun was not built on its former site. 
The ground about the town and in the intermediate spaces between 
the houses, was generally grown over, in a scattered manner, with 
bushes and wild herbage, but scarcely any grass was to be seen : or 
in other words, every part of this plain was left in its natural and 
rough state, excepting the areas enclosed by the fences which sur- 
round the houses. 
The town had been built without the least attempt at regularity 
of arrangement ; and the houses were placed with as little appearance 
of order or of any particular plan, as the trees of the grove which 
stood there before them. Consequently there were neither streets 
nor squares ; and the only circumstances which seemed to have 
determined the position of a house, were evenness of ground, and 
clearness from bushes; for, in a spot destitute of trees and water, 
these people find nothing to guide their choice, excepting, perhaps, 
the nature of the ground on which they are to build. 
Such a town may be considered as a collection of little villages, 
each under the superintendance of its own chieftain : and, from as 
much as I was enabled to observe, I was induced to suppose, that 
when the Chief of the tribe or nation, has, with the concurrence of 
the principal inhabitants, fixed on any place as a convenient site for 
their town, each chieftain or kosi pitches his house on a separate 
spot, while all his relations and friends, or dependants, build theirs 
around him ; and often so close to each other as barely to leave a 
VOL. II. 3 u 
