156 
NATIVE HOUSES. 
Their houses are very neat structures, ele- 
vated four or five feet above the ground, and en- 
tered by a stair through a trap-door cut iu the 
floor, which is shut down and bolted at night. 
But domestic work could not be performed within 
them, for they are nothing more than floor and 
roof, so it is that they do everything under 
their dwellings. There are, however, two fire- 
places inside, — one for cooking when the weather 
is too boisterous out-of-doors, while the other is, 
as it were, nurse to the infants. Coming home 
from a ramble one evening, ended by a stroll 
through the village, we were attracted to a hut 
where an unusual stir and brightness centred. 
They allowed me to climb up the trap-stair to see 
a newly-born infant, who was lying in a rude 
cradle (called in Tenimber language a siwela) 
of rattan wickerwork, with only a palm spathe 
beneath its back, and quite naked but for a tiny 
rag on its stomach. But it was kept warm, as 
well as defended from tormenting mosquitoes, 
by being swung over a fire, on this occasion in 
a smoke so dense that I was amazed it was not 
suffocated. To our utter astonishment we learnt 
that all quite young children are thus swung 
over the fire in the night, the mother having the 
end of a rope attached in her resting-place, and 
