CHAP. II. 
NATIVE CUSTOM HOUSE. 
25 
officers whom we had seen on board the previous day and 
some others, who cordially welcomed us, shaking us frankly 
by the hand. A large crowd gathered round us as the officers 
led the way to the custom house, situated under a cluster of 
tall cocoa-nut trees, not far from the landing place. This 
building is a purely native structure, between thirty and forty 
feet long, and nearly as wide. The walls are about twelve 
feet high, and composed of posts fixed in the ground at 
unequal distances, the spaces between being filled up with the 
thick strong leaf-stalks of the traveller’s tree fixed upright 
between flat laths, each stalk being about ten feet long. The 
thatch covering the steep roof was composed of the leaves of 
the same tree fastened with native cord, and the rods fixed 
horizontally on the rafters; the floor was of sea-sand, partly 
covered with strongly woven rush matting, and partly floored 
with the bark or hard outside of the traveller’s tree, which 
appeared to have been taken off from the fibrous centre of the 
tree, and beaten out flat, so as to form a sort of hard, flat, 
cracked, yet adhering board, fifteen or eighteen inches wide, 
and sometimes more than twenty feet in length. These 
bark-formed boards were laid side by side on the sand, and, 
though not nailed to cross rafters, seemed to lie even and 
firm. Bound the sides and matted end of the house were 
fixed a number of benches, on which we sat down and con¬ 
versed freely with those around us. 
The harbour master, who could speak a little English, and 
to whom I made myself known as having met him in Eng¬ 
land, made inquiries about the affairs of Mauritius and the 
Cape, and whether it was peace or war in Europe. He also 
asked about France, and England, and persons whom he had 
met there—Lord Palmerston amongst the rest. He asked 
more than once about the theatres in London, which seemed 
to have been objects of great attraction and wonder to the 
several members of the embassy when there; but I found 
