"Of all places for studying construction of huts, Africa is the very best. There one may see samples of everything that can be thought of in the way of circular houses; built of straw, sticks, leaves, matting; of one room or of many; large or small; crude or wonderfully artistic and carefully made. They may be permanent constructions to be occupied for years or temporary shelter for a single night; they may consist of frameworks made of light poles over which are thrown mats or sheets of various materials and which after using can be taken apart, packed away, and transported."[2] From lightly built, temporary dwellings, it was but a short step to the more substantial, more enduring ones. Stone houses, dwellings made of timber and of brick, as the country afforded, replaced the earlier homes, and when written records bring the full light of knowledge upon the life of nations, in the matters of constructing dwelling places, several peoples had become proficient. FOOD. It would be difficult to discover any plant or animal life which had not served at some period for food. Primitive man knew nothing about harmful plants, and only by long experience did he learn to avoid such as worked him woe. No insect or animal is so repulsive but that it has been appropriated by the food-hunter in some age and country, and things today which we would refuse in time of distress were used as a matter of course by earlier people. Nature supplied acorns, berries, roots, fruits, fish and plenty of game. All these articles were at first eaten in their native state. When fire became well known, cooked foods grew in favor. It is supposed that these were at first roasted. To suspend meat over a fire or make a large opening in the ground, cover the floor with stones, heat these very hot, then remove the fire and bake the food, these are the most primitive--as well, perhaps, as the most satisfactory--ways known to us. Boiling was probably a later method, and this was not done as we boil food today. Rather, stones were heated very hot and tossed into kettles of water. In this way the water was brought to a boiling point and the food cooked. CULTIVATED PLANTS.