340 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES, 
by being repeatedly trodden under foot, became 
dry, broken, and filled with dust, furnishing also a 
resort for vermin, which generally swarmed the 
floors in such numbers, as to become intolerable. 
In these houses the people took their meals, sitting 
in circles on the grass-spread floor. Here, the 
fresh water used in washing their hands, the cocoa- 
nut water which was their frequent beverage, and the 
sea-water in which they dipped their food, was often 
spilt. Moisture induced decay, and although over 
these parts of the floor they often spread a little 
fresh grass, yet many places in the native houses 
frequently resembled a stable, or a stable-yard, more 
than a suitable dwelling-place for human beings. 
In the drier parts of the house, along each side, 
the inmates slept at night. However large the 
building might be,^ there were no partitions or 
skreens. Some of their houses were two hundred 
feet long; and on the floor, hundreds have, at 
times, lain down promiscuously to sleep. They 
slept on mats manufactured with palm-leaves, 
spread on the ground. These mats were generally 
rolled up like a sailor’s hammock in the morning, 
and spread out at night. The chief and his wife 
usually slept at one end of the house, without the 
least partition between them and the other inmates 
of their dwelling. Instead of a single mat, three 
or four, or even ten, were sometimes spread one 
upon the other, to give elevation and softness; 
and this, with the finer texture of the mats, was 
the only difference between the bed of the chief, 
and that on which the meanest of his dependents 
slept. Instead of being spread on the floor, the 
mats were sometimes spread on a low bedstead, 
raised nine or twelve inches above the floor. The 
sides and bottom of this bedstead were made 
