246 
NATIVE DWELLINGS. 
the rainy season. Some are so very small that it is 
surprising how they contrive to make use of them. 
They have, in fact, no room for the legs, which arc 
extended right and left over the gunwale, and serve to 
keep the balance. 
The people were apparently well pleased to see us, 
and everywhere invited us into their little houses, 
where palm-wine, or some trifling refreshment in the 
way of fruit, was offered. The huts are of a square 
form, mostly double, placed at right-angles, neatly built 
of mud, and roofed with a compact matting of dried 
palm-leaves, and a sort of reed or juncus, which grows 
in the marshes near the river ; the floor is raised a foot 
and a half. The entrance is square, and serves for the 
three-fold purpose of door, window and chimney, when 
they have a fire inside. The thatch or roof overhangs, 
and is supported by little pillars, which, as well as the 
exterior of the house, is curiously streaked with red 
and yellow clay, in some cases tastefully aiTanged. 
Those of the richer persons, as judges, headmen and 
Fetiche priests, are larger and have many compartments, 
with a quadrangular court, where most of the house- 
hold and cooking operations are carried on, amid the 
usual noise and laughter of African damsels, by whom 
they are conducted."^ 
King Obi Osai’s residence is the largest in the town, 
* On the roofs of many of these dwellings we saw the fulvous 
vultures or griffons, perched in a half-stupified state, probably the 
