180 THE RESIDENCE OF RUMANIKA. 
With respect to the habitations of the people, sup- 
pose that on the face of a bare hill overlooking a lake 
we place forty or fifty low dome-looking huts of cane, 
covered with grass; divide them into sets of twos and 
threes by screens and gates of cane ; throw an em- 
bankment round the whole, and have a dense hedge 
of euphorbia trees on the top of the embankment, 
screening the view of the lake and the country 
around, and you have the Palace of Eumanika, con- 
taining his five wives, sons, four hundred cows and 
their calves, &c. Except a hut or two outside this 
" bomah," nothing but a curl of smoke in the valleys 
showed that there was any population in the country. 
Descend to the valleys, and you find neatly-formed 
huts of grass inside the plantain-groves. Their inte- 
riors are plastered for five feet with cow-dung and mud; 
the ceiling is of cane, blackened by smoke, for there 
is no fireplace. The temporary huts made for us by 
our Seedees were gable-ended, made of props from the 
meelomba or bark-cloth tree, and roofed over with 
grass and the decayed leaves of plantains, the whole 
made water-tight by India-rubber sheeting being 
placed on their roofs — the last a requisite which the 
traveller should never forget. The sultan generally 
received us in a tidily-kept hut, carpeted with the 
silky leaves of the papyrus, and loopholed in several 
places for visitors outside to make him their obeisance 
by clapping their hands and addressing him. Here, 
seated on his warm bedding, we chatted and laughed 
with him, paying long and pleasant visits, his majesty 
at the same time smoking his large black pipe. 
Screens of cane, placed as gates, prevented our inter- 
views being interrupted, and permission was required 
