Not long after the massacre of the white men, the natives were visited by a disease that caused their limbs to swell, and produced great distress amongst them; it was before unknown, and they ascribed it to Lay and Huzzy, who, they believed, had the power to afflict them in that manner, and had done it to be revenged for the death of their countrymen. They finally charged them with it, and threatened to kill them, which, in all probability they would have done, but for their superstitious fear of some greater evil. Their huts are not, generally, more than ten by fifteen feet, and from ten to fifteen feet high. They are divided into two apartments, upper and lower; the lower is open all round, without any thatching; the floor is raised a little above the adjacent ground, and covered over with small pieces of the cleanest and whitest coral that can be found. The rafters and small sticks that are laid across them for the thatching, are secured by twine made from the outer husk of cocoa-nut, with which the thatching is also secured. The thatch is the leaves of palm or cocoa-nut. The ceiling of the lower room is generally so low, that one must bend almost double to get into it, and if you remain, it must be in a lying or sitting posture. The garret has a floor of sticks thickly interwoven with leaves; it is higher than the ground floor, and has an air of comfort. The natives keep their provisions in it, and all such things as they would preserve from the rats. They also sleep there in wet weather. In the floor, a hole is left just large enough for a person to crawl through, and so far from the sides that the rats cannot get to it.