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Proceedings of the Royal Society 
placed in the middle of it, both inside and out, to move it with. Ho 
aperture is left for the smoke to escape. 
Outside the hut a hank of earth is placed all round, consolidated 
by wetting and stamping it, in order to prevent the w r ater soaking 
into the house during the heavy rains. The floors of the huts are 
carefully covered with soft fine grass ; first a small bundle of even 
lengths is placed on the ground, another at right angles to it and 
partially overlapping it, and then a third at right angles to it, and 
so on. Some of the huts, which one might term summer-houses, are 
lightly built of wickerwork walls and a light thatched conical roof. 
The wickerwork is often composed of various coloured grasses, and 
the patterns woven are varied and chaste. The chiefs pride them- 
selves very much upon their houses, and should they find the 
slightest mistake after they are finished they have them pulled 
down and rebuilt; the builders in such a case getting no compensa- 
tion. 
A hut here and there may he seen with gable roofs and vertical 
walls, hut they have probably been copied from foreigners and do 
not need description, save that the walls are composed of three 
layers, the inner and outer ones being of wickerwork, and the middle 
one of grass some 2 feet thick. 
Furniture . — In the larger establishments huts are provided for 
different purposes. There is first a reception hall, where the owner 
receives his guests ; next his private hut, where he sleeps, has his 
meals, and in which he keeps his greatest treasures. Then there are 
storehouses ; one for dried plantains, another for semsem seed, which 
is kept in large earthenware pots or wickerwork baskets ; another 
serves the purpose of a cellar, and in it may he seen innumerable 
large bottle gourds filled with the native drink, plantain wine, 
neatly corked with banana leaves. Another hut serves as a kitchen, 
and in it are several fireplaces constructed of three stones. People 
who only possess one hut use its various partitions for the different 
purposes just described. From the poles which support the roof 
baskets of various descriptions are hung, suspended by ropes, tied 
to the poles by a complicated clove hitch. The beds are made of 
wickerwork, and raised a foot or two from the ground ; they are 
covered by hides and Mbugu cloth. In many of the houses the 
walls are hung with Mbugu cloth, which is often dyed in various 
