The houses of the upper classes and richer people used to be built of timber framework, the walls being of thick upright planks, which are grooved at the edge, a tenon of the tough _anìvona_ palm bark being inserted so as to hold them together. Two or three lengths of the same fibrous substance were also passed through each plank longitudinally at different heights from the ground, so as to bind them all firmly together round the house. The accompanying drawing will show more clearly than any verbal description the details of the structure of a Hova _tràno-kòtona_, as this style of wooden house is called (no such houses are built nowadays; and very few of them remain; the use of brick, sun-dried and burnt, has entirely superseded them). The roof in both clay and timber houses does not depend for its stability on the walls only, but is mainly supported by three tall posts, which are let into the ground for some depth and carry the ridge-piece. One of these posts is in the centre, and one is at each end, close to the walls inside the house. This is a wise provision, as the roofs are generally of high pitch, and in violent winds would need much more support than could be given by the walls. The gables were always thatched with the same materials as the roof, either of long grass or the _hèrana_ sedge. At each gable the outer timbers cross the apex, and project upwards for about a foot or two, the extremities being notched, and often having a small wooden figure of a bird. In the houses of people of rank, the _tàndro-tràno_ or “house-horns” were three or four feet long, while in some of the royal houses they projected ten or twelve feet, the length being apparently some indication of the rank of the owner. In some tribes these gable ornaments, which have become only conventional horns among the Hovas, are carved in exact resemblance of those adorning the head of a bullock. [Illustration: A MALAGASY HOUSE. Showing elevation, plan, internal arrangement, and month names. _See page 96_] [Sidenote: THE INTERIOR] The interior arrangements of a Hova house are very simple and are (or perhaps it would be more correct to say _were_) almost always the same.