The houses, which are the first wooden buildings we have seen since leaving the Illinois country, are nearly equal in size, and exhibit a very singular appearance. A large hole, twenty feet wide and thirty in length, is dug to the depth of six feet. The sides are then lined with split pieces of timber, rising just above the surface of the ground, which are smoothed to the same width by burning, or shaved with small iron axes. These timbers are secured in their erect position by a pole, stretched along the side of the building near the caves, and supported on a strong post fixed at each corner. The timbers at the gable ends rise gradually higher, the middle pieces being the broadest. At the top of these is a sort of semicircle, made to receive a ridge-pole, the whole length of the house, propped by an additional post in the middle, and forming the top of the roof. From this ridge-pole to the eaves of the house, are placed a number of small poles or rafters, secured at each end by fibres of the cedar. On these poles, which are connected by small transverse bars of wood, is laid a covering of the white cedar, or arbor vitæ, kept on by the strands of the cedar fibres: but a small distance along the whole length of the ridge-pole is left uncovered for the purpose of light, and permitting the smoke to pass through. The roof thus formed has a descent about equal to that common amongst us, and near the eaves is perforated with a number of small holes, made most probably to discharge their arrows in case of an attack. The only entrance is by a small door at the gable end, cut out of the middle piece of timber, twenty-nine and a half inches high, and fourteen inches broad, and reaching only eighteen inches above the earth. Before this hole is hung a mat, and on pushing it aside and crawling through, the descent is by a small wooden ladder, made in the form of those used amongst us. One half of the inside is used as a place of deposit for their dried fish, of which there are large quantities stored away, and with a few baskets of berries form the only family provisions; the other half adjoining the door, remains for the accommodation of the family. On each side are arranged near the walls, small beds of mats placed on little scaffolds or bedsteads, raised from eighteen inches to three feet from the ground, and in the middle of the vacant space is the fire, or sometimes two or three fires, when, as is indeed usually the case, the house contains three families.