THROUGH HAWAII. 
317 
the ground, and spread grass over it, which they cover 
with large mats made of the leaves of the pandanus. 
But the best floors are those formed with pebbles, or 
small fragments of lava, which are always dry, and 
less likely to be infested with vermin than those co¬ 
vered with grass. 
The size and quality of a dwelling varies according 
to the rank and means of its possessor, those of the 
poor people being mere huts, eight or ten feet square, 
others twenty feet long, and ten or twelve feet wide, 
while the houses of the chiefs are from forty to seventy 
feet long. Their houses are generally separate from 
each other; even in their most populous villages, how¬ 
ever near the houses may be, they are always distinct 
buildings. Although there are professed house-car¬ 
penters who excel in framing, and others who are 
taught to finish the comers of the house and ridge of 
the roof, which but few understand, yet, in general, 
every man erects his own house. If it be of a middling 
or large size, this, to an individual or a family, is a for¬ 
midable undertaking, as they have to cut down the trees 
in the mountains, and bring the wood from six to ten 
miles on their shoulders, gather the leaves or grass, 
braid the cinet, &c. before they can begin to build. 
But when a chief wants a house, he requires the 
labour of all who hold lands under him; and we have 
often been surprised at the despatch with which a 
house is sometimes built. We have known the natives 
come with their materials in the morning, put up the 
frame of a, middling-sized house in one day, cover it in 
the next, and on the third day return to their lands. 
Each division of people has a part of the house allotted 
by the chief, in proportion to its number; and it is no 
