Our First Dwelling 
tween the posts all around the house. When 
these shutters were closed at night the piazza 
was as secure as the interior of the house, and 
we could leave the windows of our sleeping 
apartments open without fear and get the bene¬ 
fit of the air circulating in the piazza and over 
the body of the house. It was impossible for 
man or for any dangerous beast to enter the 
house without first forcing one of these shutters. 
The house was furnished with everything nec¬ 
essary to simple housekeeping and to reasonable 
comfort. The bedsteads were of iron and had 
high posts from which mosquito curtains were 
suspended. Strong cloth fastened to the top 
ends of the posts made a flat roof or tester to the 
whole bed, thus protecting the sleeper from any¬ 
thing falling from the ceiling at night. At each 
end of the house were some small rooms as wide 
as the piazza, used for a dispensatory; a sleep¬ 
ing-room for our servant; a study, and a room in 
which we kept our drinking water. This last 
had the ground for a floor and contained several 
large water pots buried in the floor up to their 
rim to keep the water cool. We did not drink 
any water when not travelling until it had been 
standing in these pots several days, because it 
took that time for the vegetable matter to sink to 
65 
