A Hova house of the old style is always built with its length running north and south; it is an oblong, the length being about half as much again as the breadth, and the door and window always on the west side, so as to be sheltered from the prevailing south-east winds; for, as there is no glass, there would be much inconvenience in facing the windward side. There is frequently another window at the north end of the house, and often one also in the north gable. The material used always to be the hard red clay found all over the central provinces; and this is still largely used, although sun-dried bricks are supplanting the old style of building. This clay, after being mixed with water, is kneaded by being trampled over thoroughly, and is then laid in courses of about a foot to eighteen inches in height, and about the same in thickness. Each layer is allowed to become hard and firm before the next one is set, and it is well beaten on both sides as it dries. If properly laid and of good material, the cracks are not very large when the clay is dry, and are filled up; and it makes a very substantial and durable walling, quite as much, and more so, as the majority of cheap brick houses in England. The boundary walls of the compounds are also made of the same hard clay; and it is remarkable how many years such material will last without much damage, although exposed almost daily, for four or five months every year, to the heavy rains of the wet season. (I know walls which had been built for several years before I saw them first forty-three years ago, and yet they seem little altered since that time.)