Mud Walls.
There is a mode of wall-building which is much in vogue in some parts of England, and has much to commend itself. This is the Mud or Concrete Wall.
At first sight, the very name of a mud house gives an idea of poverty and misery, and is apt to be connected with hovels and pigsties. Mud walls, however, if properly built, are far warmer and drier than those of brick, and are even preferred to those of stone, when the latter can be easily and cheaply obtained. In Devonshire, for example, where even the cattle-sheds, or “linhays” (pronounced linny), and the pigsties are made of the rich red stone of the county, it is a common thing to see village houses built of mud. Sometimes the houses are built of stone to the height of some ten or twelve feet, and the upper parts made of mud.
If the builders are in any way fastidious, they make their walls of a uniform surface by placing two rows of planks on their edges at a distance from each other proportionate to the thickness of the wall, pouring the mud between them, and, when it has sufficiently hardened, shifting the planks. This, however, is not necessary, and detracts much from the picturesque look of a genuine mud wall, especially when it is of that rich red which characterizes the Devonshire soil. These mud walls are locally known by the name of Cob.
We have not to go very far in Nature to find good examples of the strength which can be attained by mud walls.
In all parts of the world where Termites, popularly but wrongly called White Ants, are to be found, the strength and endurance of the mud wall can easily be tested. Of gigantic dimensions when compared with the size of the architect, they not only endure the rain-torrents which wash over them, but can sustain the weight of the wild cattle, which are in the habit of using them as watch-towers, and this although they are hollow, and filled with chambers and galleries.
In Southern Africa these nests are much utilised. There is an animal called by the Dutch settlers the Aard-vark, which feeds almost wholly on Termites. At night it issues from its burrow, and, being armed with large and powerful claws, tears a great hole in the side, and devours the inmates.
These deserted nests are sometimes used as ovens, as we have already seen, a fire having been kindled within them for some time, the meat, well enveloped in leaves, being thrust into them, and the opening closed with clay. Sometimes they are used as graves, the corpse being placed in them, and the hollow filled up with earth, while the wall of the Termite nest, when pounded and mixed with water, is found to be the most tenacious clay that can be used for building or flooring huts.