The “ Bedouin ” 
THAMES HOUSE-BOATS 
A HOUSE-BOAT is an ideal combination 
of house and garden, and the garden is 
always possessed of the attraction of running 
water. It is true you do not dig in the garden; 
but while the labor is absent, the results, in 
the form of beautiful many-hued flowers and 
trailing greenery, are there for your enjoy¬ 
ment. To decorate a house-boat with flowers 
is to develop the art of arranging window 
boxes to its highest perfection. 
The house and the boat are sometimes 
built together, each being designed with a 
view to the other’s convenience. Sometimes 
a barge is purchased, and the house built 
into it. Occasionally a disused street car is 
bought first, and after that a flat-bottomed 
boat found, big enough 
to bear the weight of 
its novel load, plus 
furniture, flowering 
shrubs, and it may be, 
a family. Scrutinizing 
eyes will detect under 
the ample awnings of 
the “Sunbeam” the 
familiar features of a 
car constructed in New 
York. It might have 
been built especially 
for its present position, 
so well does it perform 
its function as house¬ 
boat on the Thames. 
The steps at either end 
of the car give access to the roof, which is 
protected by an awning and made habitable 
by canvas curtains to draw against chilly 
winds. T he “ Sunbeam ” contains in the 
center a large bed-sitting room, which opens 
into the saloon. The other end of the boat 
is for the kitchen and domestic offices. There 
is another bedroom, and a long connecting 
gangway down the front. 
Providing your boat will float evenly with 
a great weight upon it, you may design it as 
you please. The “ Domik ” suggests the free¬ 
dom and unconventionality of river life, long 
summer evenings enlivened by music and 
song, and the pearly glimmer of dawn over¬ 
taking the revelers, ere they realize the short- 
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