VII 
OUR FIRST DWELLING 
I suppose the reader would like to know some¬ 
thing about our dwelling-house in Ejahyay, 
which we shared with the missionary already 
there. The walls were of solid adobe and were 
in the form of an oblong square divided into 
four compartments. One of these compartments 
made the sitting and reception-room and the 
others, the storeroom and two bedrooms. The 
ceilings of these rooms were of dressed boards 
of yellow roko wood. The whole was covered 
by a roof of poles and reeds so bound together 
by strong vines as to form a network for the 
thatching of long, dried grass. All around the 
house, the roof rested on posts so as to form a 
wide piazza and let the air circulate freely be¬ 
tween the lofty roof and the body of the house, 
which was about eighty feet long, twenty feet 
wide and ten feet high. In this way there was 
a cushion of air above and all around which kept 
out the external heat. The piazza had large 
wooden shutters extending horizontally and rest¬ 
ing on an adobe wall three feet high built be- 
64 
