adrangular, and contained a single room,
had raised, not flat roofs, and were provided at one of the
shorter sides, near one corner, with a high rectangular
door opening, which certainly was not intended to be
closed, and on one of the long sides with a square
window-opening. The building material was bamboo, from
eight to eleven centimetres in thickness, mostly whole, but
sometimes cleft. The roof had a thin layer of palm leaves
upon it to keep out the rain. The house in its entirety
resembled a cage of spills to which the least puff of wind
had always free entrance. The floor bent and yielded much,
and at the same time was so weak that one could not walk
upon it without being afraid of falling through. One half,
right opposite the door opening, was overlaid with a thin
mat of some plant; it was evidently the sleeping place of
the family. Some pieces of cloth was all the clothing we
could discover. Of household articles there was scarcely
any trace. Nor were there any weapons, arrows, or bows. The
fireplace was in one corner of the room; it consisted of an
immense ash-heap on some low stones. Beside it stood a
rather dirty iron pot. All refuse from meals, bones and
mollusc-shells, had been thrown into the water under the
floor; there lay now a regular culture-layer, a couple of
feet higher than the surrounding sea-bottom, consisting for
the most part of mussel shells. The floor of the room was
very dirty and black; it looked as if it had never been in
contact with a drop of water. The interior of the whole
house struck one as being as poor and wretched as that of a
Chukch tent. Its inhabitants appeared scarcely to own more
than they stood or walked in, _i.e._ for every person a
large piece of cloth round the waist. Small boats lay
moored to the platform. They were nothing else than
tree-stems hollowed out, without any separate planks at the
sides, at most two to two and a half metres long, and
capable of carrying only two men. We had met such a boat a
little way up the river, rowed by two youths, and laden
with palm-leaves, it was not more than five to eight
centimetres above the water, and appeared as if it would
capsize with the least indiscreet movement on the part of
the boatmen. Some dogs of middle size went about loose on
the platform; they were at firs