The houses, or rather dwellings of these people, have been occasionally mentioned before: They are all built in the wood, between the sea and the mountains, and no more ground is cleared for each house, than just sufficient to prevent the dropping of the branches from rotting the thatch with which they are covered; from the house, therefore, the inhabitant steps immediately under the shade, which is the most delightful that can be imagined. It consists of groves of bread-fruit and cocoa-nuts, without underwood, which are intersected, in all directions, by the paths that lead from one house to the other. Nothing can be more grateful than this shade in so warm a climate, nor any thing more beautiful than these walks. As there is no underwood, the shade cools without impeding the air; and the houses, having no walls, receive the gale from whatever point it blows. I shall now give a particular description of a house of a middling size, from which, as the structure is universally the same, a perfect idea may be formed both of those that are bigger, and those that are less. The ground winch it covers is an oblong square, four and twenty feet long, and eleven wide; over this a roof is raised, upon three rows of pillars or posts, parallel to each other, one on each side, and the other in the middle. This roof consists of two flat sides inclining to each other, and terminating in a ridge, exactly like the roofs of our thatched houses in England. The utmost height within is about nine feet, and the eaves on each side reach to within about three feet and a half of the ground: Below this, and through the whole height at each end, it is open, no part of it being enclosed with a wall. The roof is thatched with palm-leaves, and the floor is covered, some inches deep, with soft hay; over this are laid mats, so that the whole is one cushion, upon which they sit in the day, and sleep in the night. In some houses, however, there is one stool, which is wholly appropriated to the master of the family; besides this, they have no furniture, except a few little blocks of wood, the upper side of which is hollowed into a curve, and which serve them for pillows. The house is indeed principally used as a dormitory; for, except it rains, they eat in the open air, under the shade of the next tree. The clothes that they wear in the day serve them for covering in the night; the floor is the common bed of the whole household, and is not divided by any partition. The master of the house and his wife sleep in the middle, next to them the married people, next to them the unmarried women, and next to them, at a little distance, the unmarried men; the servants, or _toutous_, as they are called, sleep in the open air, except it rains, and in that case they come just within the shed.[7]