and on the banks of the Amazon they are also to be seen perched on piles driven into the muddy bottom. The delta of the Parana, which is scarcely above high-water mark, is called the Venetia of South America. Here the houses are built on piles in order to keep the flooring free from the sudden rising of floods. Near Rosario, in Buenos-Ayres, _gauchos_, who have given up horses and horse stealing and taken to canoes and petty larceny, have constructed rude abodes in the swamps along the banks of one of the tributaries of the La Plata.[29] Captain Burton mentions an African tribe who had erected their dwellings in the same way at a great distance from the shore.[30] Lake Moyhrga or Realmah, in Central Africa, presents at the present day the characteristic features pertaining to the descriptions of an ancient Irish lacustrine site. Cameron[31] describes this lake as lying in a small basin embosomed in low-wooded hills, interspersed with patches of cultivated ground. The lake is small--only two miles in length by one in width--the margin girt with floating vegetation corresponding to the reeds, flags, and aqueous growth of more temperate climes. Three villages, besides detached huts, were scattered irregularly over its surface: the huts were built on platforms raised about six feet above the surface of the water, supported on stout piles driven into the bed of the lake; underneath the platform canoes were moored and nets hung to dry. Some huts were oblong in shape, others round, with occasionally, a projecting roof over the door, and they were constructed in a manner precisely similar to those on _terra firma_. The inmates live in these dwellings with their fowl and goats, only going ashore in their “dug-outs” to cultivate their small patches of tillage, and to allow their goats to graze. These lake-dwellers were very unapproachable when on land, always running to their canoes and paddling away on the appearance of a stranger. The paddles are described as resembling large circular shallow spoons with long straight handles, the canoes about 25 feet in length. In Eastern Africa also pile dwellings are to be found, as at Mayunga, in Madagascar. At Mirambaus, in Eastern Africa, the score or so of houses composing the village are constructed on posts raised some 8 feet above the ground,[32] whilst in the neighbouring village of Mujurumbe huts formed of bamboo and cocoa-nut leaf are erected on piles. Thus we see that a habitat on the water has been, or is still, used by races of men not having the slightest affinity to each other, as the boat-living population of China, the lake-dwellers of Central Africa, Europe, New Guinea, Great Britain, Ireland, &c.