that might occasionally serve for such a purpose. Their houses are the most inartificially made of any thing among them, being scarcely equal, except in size, to an English dog-kennel: they are seldom more than eighteen or twenty feet long, eight or ten broad, and five or six high, from the pole that runs from one end to the other, and forms the ridge, to the ground. The framing is of wood, generally slender sticks, and both walls and roof consist of dry grass and hay, which, it must be confessed, is very tightly put together; and some are also lined with the bark of trees, so that in cold weather they must afford a very comfortable retreat. The roof is sloping, like those of our barns, and the door is at one end, just high enough to admit a man, creeping upon his hands and knees: near the door is a square hole, which serves the double office of window and chimney, for the fire-place is at that end, nearly in the middle between the two sides. In some conspicuous part, and generally near the door, a plank is fixed, covered with carving after their manner: this they value as we do a picture, and in their estimation it is not an inferior ornament. The side-walls and roof project about two feet beyond the walls at each end, so as to form a kind of porch, in which there are benches for the accommodation of the family. That part of the floor which is allotted for the fire-place is enclosed in a hollow square, by partitions either of wood or stone, and in the middle of it the fire is kindled. The floor, along the inside of the walls, is thickly covered with straw, and upon this the family sleep. Their furniture and implements consist of but few articles, and one chest commonly contains them all, except their provision-baskets, the gourds that hold their fresh water, and the hammers that are used to beat their fern-root, which generally stand without the door: some rude tools, their clothes, arms, and a few feathers to stick in their hair, make the rest of their treasure. Some of the better sort, whose families are large, have three or four houses enclosed within a court-yard, the walls of which are constructed of poles and hay, and are about ten or twelve feet high. When we were on shore in the district called Tolaga, we saw the ruins, or rather the frame of a house, for it had never been finished, much superior in size to any that we saw elsewhere: it was thirty feet in length, about fifteen in breadth, and twelve high: the sides of it were adorned with many carved planks, of a workmanship much superior to any other that we had met with in the country; but for what purpose it was built, or why it was deserted, we could never learn.