In their language, as in Arabic, the missionaries found no word for _home;_ and there was no need of it, for the thing itself was wanting. The house consisted of one large room and was generally occupied by several generations. In that one room all the work of the family was performed. There they ate, and there they slept. The beds consisted of three articles--a thick comfortable filled with wool or cotton beneath, a pillow, and one heavy quilt for covering. On rising, they "took up their beds," and piled them on a wooden frame, and spread them down again at night. The room was lighted by an opening in the roof, which also served for a chimney; though, of course, in a very imperfect manner, as the inside of every dwelling that has stood for any length of time bears witness. The upper part of the walls and the under surface of the roof--we can hardly call it ceiling--fairly glitter, as though they had been painted black and varnished, and every article of clothing, book, or household utensil, is saturated with the smell of creosote. The floor, like the walls, is of earth, covered in part with coarse straw mats and pieces of carpeting; and the flat roof, of the same material, rests on a layer of sticks, supported by large beams; the mass above, however, often sifts through, and sometimes during a heavy rain assumes the form of a shower of mud. Bad as all this may seem, the houses are still worse in the mountain districts, such as Gawar. There they are half under ground, made of cobble stones laid up against the slanting sides of the excavation, and covered by a conical roof with a hole in the centre. They contain, besides the family, all the implements of husbandry, the cattle, and the flocks. These last occupy "the sides of the house" (1 Sam. xxiv. 3), and stand facing the "decana," or raised place in the centre, which is devoted to the family. As wood is scarce in the mountains, and the climate severe, the animal heat of the cattle is a substitute for fuel, except as sun-baked cakes of manure are used once a day for cooking, as is the practice also on the plain. In such houses the buffaloes sometimes break loose and fight furiously, and instances are not rare when they knock down the posts on which the roof rests, and thus bury all in one common ruin.