During the winter time the native huts are of better construction, although the best hut that an Australian ever made is but a very rude and primitive specimen of architecture. These winter huts are made on the same principle as those employed in summer, but the materials are more closely put together. The framework of these huts is made by sticking a number of saplings in the ground, and tying them together. Smaller branches and twigs are then passed in and out of the uprights, and pressed down to make a tolerably firm wall. Over the wall comes a layer of large leaves, and an outer covering of tea-tree bark is placed over the trees, and held in its place by a lashing of rattan. These houses are about five feet in height, and have an arched opening just large enough for a man to enter on his hands and knees. Such huts as these, however, are but seldom seen, the ordinary winter dwellings being made of bushes, as seen in an illustration on the next page. Near the entrance, but not within it, the fire is kindled, and at night the natives crowd into the hut, filling it so completely that a view of the interior displays nothing but a confused mass of human limbs. The reader will perceive that the luxury of a door has not been contemplated by the native architects--an omission which is perhaps rather fortunate, considering the crowded state of the interior. Along the shores of the Coorung a rather peculiar kind of habitation is used. It must first be mentioned that the Coorung is a back-water inlet of the sea, running parallel to it for some ninety miles or so, never more than a mile and a half from the sea, and divided from it only by a range of enormous sandhills. It is a wild and desolate place, but is inhabited by the Milmendura tribe, who made themselves so notorious for the massacre of the passengers and men of the ship _Maria_. The natives probably like the spot, because in the Coorung, which is protected from the ocean waves by the sandhills, they can take fish without danger, and because the sandhills furnish a fruit called the monterry, or native apple, as, although a berry growing upon a creeping plant, it looks and tastes like a miniature apple. The situation is much exposed in the winter time to the cold south-west blasts, and the natives accordingly make comparatively strong huts. Their dwellings are formed of a framework of sticks, over which is plastered a thick layer of turf and mud. In addition to this they heap over the hut a great quantity of the sand and shells of which the ground is chiefly composed, so that the houses of the Milmendura look like mere mounds or hillocks rising from the sandy soil.