The Basuto usually build their villages on the side of a mountain or kopje, selecting situations which offer many natural means of defence. Their huts are generally circular, sod-wall buildings, with thatch roofs, and outside each hut, as a rule, is a sort of palisade of reeds called a "skerm," in which all the cooking and frequently the eating also takes place. When a man wanted to build a hut, in the days before they adopted more civilized modes, and even now, in the more remote parts of the country, he took a stick, to which he fastened a strip of ox-hide, stuck the other end of the strip firmly in the ground with another peg, and, with the stick in his hand, drew a complete circle; on this line he raised the walls of his dwelling; these are made of square sods, roughly dug off the surface of the ground and laid one on the top of the other until the required height is reached. The walls are then smeared over, inside and out, with wet clay, which is the women's work. The woodwork of the roof is then laid on. It consists of branches of trees interlaced and fastened securely at the top with grass rope. On this the reeds are thickly laid and stitched down to the woodwork by more grass rope. The inner walls of the hut are often ornamented by rough scrollwork in different coloured clays. A small aperture serves as window, and over the entrance is hung a reed mat, made by lashing together with the sinews of cattle a number of dried reeds. The floors are of mud, beaten down till perfectly hard and fairly even. They are smeared over afresh every week or ten days, in order to preserve them, and also as a matter of cleanliness, much as an English housewife scrubs her floors. In the more wealthy dwellings the floors are from time to time smeared over with bullock's blood. This gives them a dark, slightly polished appearance, and makes them very much harder on the surface than those of the poorer individuals, who have to content themselves with a mixture of clay and manure from the cattle kraals. The original furniture of a native hut consisted of a mat, similar to the one hung over the entrance; a few skins, which answered the purpose of clothing by day and bedding by night; a few earthenware pots and wooden spurtles, or spoons, one or two horn spoons, often very prettily carved; and neat, strong baskets of various shapes and sizes, but chiefly round, and somewhat like an enlarged basin. The cooking was all done in the earthenware pots until European traders introduced iron pots and kettles. The chief or headman lives in the centre circle of the village. All the huts in the older villages are built in circles, one within another. This was done as a means of guarding more securely the chief and his family. As a rule, the chief has one or two buildings for his own exclusive use, while his wives' huts are built either in a row or round his own larger, more highly-finished dwellings. Each wife has a separate hut, which is her own little kingdom.