4 
or boiled. But to both laundry and scullery 
there should be ample drainage. If a garden 
be attached to the house, the drains from these 
places might profitably communicate with a 
tank, whence the contents could be drawn as 
occasion required. They would help to enrich 
as well as to moisten the soil. 
I may be thought to have dwelt too largely 
on this last portion of the subject, but let us 
consider that fully half our time is occupied in 
providing for eating and drinking, and surely it 
is not undesirable that the place in which what 
is acquired at so much expenditure is prepared, 
should be constructed on the best principles for 
economizing time, convenience, comfort — and 
therefore health. A badly cooked meal is a 
preparation to indigestion, and it will seldom 
be found that a dirty ill-provided kitchen sends 
forth any other than bad or slovenly cookery. 
So much for individual rooms. Let it be 
added that in all cases where practicable, fire- 
places should be considered essential. There is 
r.o more mischievous error than to suppose that 
the heat of this climate renders them unnecessary ; 
on the contrary, as a means of ensuring ventila- 
tion they are of the greatest use. 
I now come to the best form of disposition 
for rooms in an ordinary house. We may 
learn something if we look to those arrange- 
ments which the experience of ages has resulted 
in, in analogous climates. 
If we take Algiers — a kindred climate — the 
general form will be found that of rooms 
grouped round an open court. 
If we take Rome, we shall find the open 
court an almost invariable accompaniment to 
her best palaces and dwellings. 
If we consult the architecture of Spain under 
a similar temperature, we find the like principal 
feature predominates in the dwellings. 
If we look back to the plans which were 
adopted by the principal nations of antiquity, 
whose climates approach our own, we shall be 
struck by the general accordance of plan in this 
respect. In Pompeii once, as in Naples now, 
in ancient Nineveh, and the modern Teheran 
the open air is courted by similar means — the 
open court is the leading feature. We shall 
scarcely find any arrangement in architecture 
which, through all the mutations of style and 
nationalities, has the unbroken practice of over 
twenty to thirty centuries to sanction its adop- 
tion. 
If we try to discover the reasons which in so 
many cases led such different nations, opposed 
in religion, in manners, in all that can confer the 
•distinctive characteristics in communities to adopt 
one common feature in their architecture, it 
may possibly be proved by referring to the fol- 
lowing considerations : — In the first place it 
gives the owner, to a great extent, his choice in 
aspect for the principal dwelling rooms. In the 
seeond place it secures the utmost circulation of 
air that can be obtained in a dwelling house. In 
the third place it affords the greatest facility for 
living as it were outside walls with almost as 
much privacy as is obtainable within them. 
And lastly, it both multiplies shade, and, pro- 
perly managed, diversifies scenery. When the 
view is extensive from the house there is no 
necessity for excluding it from outside the 
court, which may even be made to form the 
framework as it were to portions of a picture. 
Where no view is to be got, as in most subur- 
ban houses, then the interior of such a court 
may always be rendered refreshing to the eye, 
cool, shady, and airy, a pleasant variety to the 
rooms which surround it, and not the least ad- 
junct to the ornamentation as well as to the com- 
fort of the whole dwelling. 
On a site which admits of a frontage of fifty 
or sixty feet, such an arrangement is always 
practicable. And when, as in some instances 
even here, adjoining buildings block up both 
sides of the allotment, it is most advantageous. 
It is not intended in this paper to show the 
details of such a plan and the situation of every 
room — that falls within the province of any 
architect who understands the subject — and the 
varieties of circumstances are so great that one 
model could not possibly be laid down as appli- 
cable to all. It would be nothing to be thank- 
ful for if it could; for out of diversity of demands 
has arisen some of the most charming combina- 
tions of which architecture is capable. It is 
only necessary to point out one or two methods 
of general disposition of which the system is 
susceptible. 
Thus, for instance, the general plan might 
present the outline of a square, divided by the 
central hall in its front lines ; by side passages 
at its first junctional angles ; the kitchen at the 
corner separated by an open kind of store from 
the rest of the house ; and the rear, where the 
site was confined, not filled in with rooms, but 
crossed by a broad verandah connecting the two 
wings. In such a case the general block — bear- 
ing in mind the limited capabilities of type 
— would be something of this kind : — 
The ordinary dwelling rooms mi^ht occupy 
the front, the bedrooms the sides, and the kit- 
chen, with its attendant conveniences, the left 
hand angle of the court. 
In a house of larger pretensions a different 
and more imposing arrangement of the rooms 
