The interior is a single room with beds around the walls. The bed consists of straight round poles laid lengthwise upon two cross-poles, the head being supported by a wooden pillow. Upon these beds the natives sleep with nothing under them and nothing over them. But they usually keep a fire at night, which is made on the earth floor. There is no outlet for the smoke, but it escapes through a narrow open space between the walls and the roof. The door is tight closed at night, and often a family will enjoy themselves around a smouldering fire in smoke so dense that a white man could scarcely enter. Their houses are kept as clean inside as their construction allows. But they are always in a state of disorder. The native mind has no categories. The native’s knowledge consists of isolated facts which he feels no mental compulsion to classify; neither do the women take pleasure in household order; and the notion of each article having a regular and proper place is foreign to their minds. However civilized they may become in the future, I can hardly think that the teapot under the bed or the pig in the parlour would ever offend their sense of propriety. In the middle of the front wall is a rectangular hole, that looks like a window, but it is both door and window. At night it is closed by propping a piece of bark against it. The successful entrance of this door is a gymnastic feat requiring long practice for its performance, and we can afford to watch the white man’s first attempt. He has seen the black man pass through it so easily that he does not suspect any difficulty. Approaching with assurance he lifts one leg quite high and passes it over the sill, only to find that he cannot get his head in; for not only is the door very low but the ragged thatch eaves of the roof project immediately in front of it. In the attempt his helmet, striking the eaves, rolls into the street. He goes after the helmet, brushes off some of the dirt, and approaching a second time, though with less assurance, he puts the other leg through the door, which is no improvement whatever upon the first effort, and he loses his helmet again. A third time he essays to enter, but with a step that indicates a rise of temperature. He thrusts his head and shoulders through the door, then tries to bring a foot in after him; but, invariably failing to get his foot nearly high enough to pass the sill he trips, falls forward, and goes plunging into the house sprawling on all fours, and only by extraordinary exertion escapes the fire in the middle of the room. The children, if they are not accustomed to the white man, scream with fright, and the grown people laugh without restraint. Those in the street laugh still louder and afford every evidence that the rear view of the performance—the unintelligible exertions, the sudden disappearance and the feet lingering on the door-sill—was an entertainment which they would greatly enjoy a second time.