of the monikin world.
Still I could not walk through the streets of Bivouac without observing
a few physical usages, that I shall mention, because they have an
evident connection with the state of society, and the historical
recollections of this interesting portion of the polar region.

In the first place, I remarked that all sorts of quadrupeds are just
as much at home in the promenades of the town, as the inhabitants
themselves, a fact that I make no doubt has some very proper connection
with that principle of equal rights on which the institutions of the
country are established. In the second place, I could not but see that
their dwellings are constructed on the very minimum of base, propping
each other, as emblematic of the mutual support obtained by the
republican system, and seeking their development in height for the want
of breadth; a singularity of customs that I did not hesitate at once to
refer to a usage of living in trees, at an epoch not very remote. In
the third place, I noted, instead of entering their dwellings near the
ground like men, and indeed like most other unfledged animals, that they
ascend by means of external steps to an aperture about half-way between
the roof and the earth, where, having obtained admission, they go up or
down within the building, as occasion requires. This usage, I made no
question, was preserved from the period (and that, too, no distant one),
when the savage condition of the country induced them to seek protection
against the ravages of wild beasts, by having recourse to ladders, which
were drawn up after the family into the top of the tree, as the sun sank
beneath the horizon. These steps or ladders are generally of some white
material, in order that they may, even now, be found in the dark, should
the danger be urgent; although I do not know that Bivouac is a more
disorderly or unsafe town than another, in the present day. But habits
linger in the usages of a people, and are often found to exist as
fashions, long after the motive of their origin has ceased and been
forgotten. As a proof of this, many of the dwellings of Bivouac have
still enormous iron chevaux-de-frise before the doors, and near the base
of the stone-ladders; a practice unquestionably taken from the original,
unsophisticated, domestic defences of this wary and enterprising race.
Among a great many of these chevaux-de-frise, I remarked certain iron
images, that resemble the kings of chess-men, and which