This larger village[44] contains fifteen to twenty houses closely packed together, and fronted by a tall row of _kanaia_ standing in the water. Bamboo posts, too, split at the upper end and spread out fanwise, are planted at intervals along the beach; they are put up yearly by every man in the village, to keep fever and devils (_iwi_) away; and several grotesque figures of crocodiles (_yéo_), placed in little shelters, raised on poles, prevent their living counterparts from attacking the villagers when they enter the water. The houses are of two kinds, round and rectangular; the latter are used as kitchens and storerooms, but there is a fireplace in the others, where much of the cooking is done. The conical roofs are made of attaps of nipah palm, neatly fastened to a framework of thick rattan by lashings of cane, the sides and floor are generally of roughly-hewn boards; inside, about 3 feet from the wall, a circle of posts helps to support the roof, which, in some cases, is entirely lined with horizontal laths of wood. The apex is crowned outside by a high, carved finial. Access is obtained by means of a notched pole, and to permit the entrance of domestic animals, a tree trunk, split and hollowed out to form a trough, slopes gently up from the ground to door or window. Beneath the houses are platforms on which the natives keep their store of pandanus and coconuts, their spare pots and baskets, and peculiar bundles of wood. This latter is neatly cut into billets about 1 foot long, and packed into circular bundles, 2 or 3 feet in diameter, by means of a tight lashing of cane.[45] One afternoon we paid a visit to Tanamara. He and his wife have no children, but have adopted a little girl from Chaura, whose parents are dead. This custom of adoption is, he says, not at all uncommon. Tanamara's father and mother live with him; the former, "England" by name, is an old, white-headed man, who is nearly eighty; he professes to know nothing about the piratical atrocities which formerly occurred in this group of islands, although many of them happened at a period sufficiently late in his life for him to have fully comprehended such events.