On we go, and at length reach a great cleared space. The trees have been felled, and some of the land is under tillage. Horses, sheep, oxen, and swine are quietly feeding, and here and there are strips of grain and barley. Half a mile away is the town. All round it is a moat, with an earthen wall topped by a stockade of oak logs. As we approach the narrow entrance, we see the pointed roofs of many huts, from which thin lines of blue smoke are curling up into the summer air. We enter the town by a zigzag road, and pass the homesteads, square or round in shape, and built of unhewn or roughly hewn trees placed on end, with roofs of interlaced boughs thatched with rushes or covered with turf. Each homestead consists of one room, large enough to contain the whole family. The floor is of earth, or perhaps covered with thin slates. In the middle of it is the family fire, which continues to burn night and day all the year round; when it dies out, the home is deserted. The smoke escapes by a hole in the roof. Round the fire, along the sides of the room, is a bed made of rushes and covered with hides or coarse rugs. On this the members of the family sit at meals, and sleep at night with their feet towards the fire. The rushes and green grass which are placed between the family fire and the family bed serve as a table, and on this at meal times are placed large platters containing oatmeal cakes, meat, and broth. In front of the entrance to one of the homesteads a blue-eyed, fair-haired woman, in a tunic of dark-blue cloth, sits grinding corn with a quern or handmill. Little boys, clad in strips of bear-skin, engage in a wrestling match hard by. Sturdy little lads they are, for their rearing has been of a Spartan character; they were plunged into the water of the stream at birth, and they received their first taste of food on the point of their father’s sword. Yonder old woman is boiling water by making pebbles red-hot in the fire and dropping them into an earthen water-pot. Passing on, we reach a long, low dwelling, which by its size indicates the superior condition of its owner. It is, indeed, the home of the chieftain of the tribe. Big mastiffs and wolf-hounds growl over their bones at the door. Within, the walls are covered with skins. Round shields of hide with shining metal bosses and rims of iron, spears with bronze or iron heads, and bows with quivers of reed arrows tipped with flint adorn the walls. One sword in particular holds the place of honour as a rare prize; it is of iron, with a sheath of bronze studded with red coral.