234 COOK’s VOYAGE, 
The houfes of their town are built upon piles, or pillars, four 
or five feet above the ground : upon thefe is laid a floor c : 
bamboo .canes, which are placed at fome aittance from each 
other, fo as to leave a free paffage for the air from below : the 
walls alfo are of bamboo, which are interwoven, hurdlewife, 
with fmall flicks, that are fattened perpendicularly to the,beams 
which form the frame of the building: it has a Hoping roof, 
which is fo well thatched with palm leaves, that neither the 
fun nor the rain can find entrance. The ground over which this 
building is eredted, is an oblong fquare. In the middle of one 
fide is the door, and in the middle between that and the end 
of the houfe, towards the left hand, is a window : a partition 
runs out from each end towards the middle, which, if conti- 
nued, would divide the whole floor into two equal parts, Ion- • 
gitudinally, but they do not meet in the middle, fo that an 
opening is left over-againft the door; each end of the hcufe 
therefore, to the right and left of the door, is divided into two 
rooms, like flails in a liable, all open towards the palfage from 
the door to the wall on the oppofite fide : in that next the 
door, to the left hand, the children fleep ; that oppofite to it, 
on the right hand, is allotted to ftrangers; the matter and his 
wife fleep in the inner room on the left hand, and that oppofite 
to it is the kitchen. There is no difference between the houfes 
of the poor and the rich, but in thefize; except that the royal 
palace, and the houfe of a man, whofe name is Gundang, the 
next in riches and influence to the King, is walled with boards 
inflead of being wattled with flicks and bamboo. 
As the people are obliged to abandon the town, and live in 
the rice-fields at certain feafons, to fecure their crops from the 
birds and the monkies, they have occafional houfes there for 
their accommodation. They are exa£tly the fame as the houfes 
in the town, except that they are fmaller; and are elevated eight 
or ten feet above the ground inflead of four. 
The difpofition of the people, as far as we could difcover it, 
is good. They dealt with us very honeftly, except, like all 
other Indians, and the itinerant retailers of fifh in London, 
they afked fometimes twice, and fometimes thrice as much for 
their commodities as-they would take. As what they brought 
to market, belonged, in different proportions, to aconfiderable 
number of the natives, and it would have been difficult to pur- 
chafe it in feperate lots, they found out a very eafy expedient 
with which every one was fatisfied : they put all that was bought 
of one kind, as plantains, or cocoa-nuts, together, and when 
we had agreed for the heap, they divided the money that was 
paid for it, among thofe of whofe feparate property it confifted, 
in a proportion correfpondrng with their contributions. Some- 
times, indeed, they changed our money, giving us 240 doits, 
amounting to five fhillings, for a Spanifh dollar, and ninety- 
fix, amounting to two (hillings, for a Bengal roupee. 
