“At the right hand side on entering there was the fireplace. The smoke escaped at a small opening at the apex of the dome. The floor was divided into two spaces by a row of curb-stones eight or nine inches high. These served as seats, the only seats in the house; but they at the same time cut off the part of the floor on which the inmates slept, the bed, in short—the whole space behind the row of stones being covered with hay and rushes. In the part of the wall bounding the bed there were three niches or presses, in which, among other things, we observed a hair-comb and some newly-made cheeses. The walls of these bee-hive huts are built of rough, undressed stones gathered from the moor, which are of fair size, but not larger than one or two men could easily lift and put into position. The dome shape, or bee-hive form, is given by making the successive courses of stone overlap each other, till at length they approach so closely all round as to leave nothing but a small hole, which can be either closed by a large sod, or left open for the escape of smoke or the admission of light. I need scarcely say that no cement is used. The principle of the arch is ignored, and the mode of construction is that of the oldest known masonry. Though the stone walls are very thick, they are soon covered on the outside with turf, which soon becomes grassy like the land round about, and thus secures perfect wind and water tightness.”[17]
Now, this extremely interesting account shows us two things. First, that we can not safely conclude from the structure of a bee-hive hut that it belongs to a pre-historic date. We are only justified in so asserting when we find it in connection with megalithic monuments, or when the spade in exploring it reveals implements of bronze or stone. Secondly, we see how man clings to tradition, how that actually at the present day men will occupy habitations on precisely the model of those erected by the population of Great Britain ages before the Roman set foot on our land.
It may be said, and with some justice, that there is no certainty that the bee-hive hut was not a mode of construction adopted by many different races. This is true. The huts in the vineyards on the river Lot in France are of precisely the same construction. In the south of Africa the Kaffir, at the sources of the Nile the Niams, build themselves circular huts of clay and wattles. Nevertheless, when we find this sort of hut identical in structure to the smallest particular, as far apart as the Desert of Beersheba, and the dunes of Brittany, the Hebrides, the Cornish peninsula, and the Pyrenees,[18] and very generally associated with megalithic monuments, we may safely conclude that they are the remains of one primitive people, and if in later ages similar habitations have been raised, it is because that with the blood, the traditions of that race have been continued.
Fig. 18.—HUTS IN THE VINEYARDS, CAHORS.
How striking is this passage from Dr. Geikie’s “Holy Land and the Bible.” He says, “In the Wilderness of Beersheba are bee-hive huts of stone, conjectured to be ancient native houses of the Amalekites. They are from seven to eight ft. in diameter, with a small door of two uprights and a lintel, about two ft. square. In one dwelling a flint arrowhead and some shells were found. Close by are some circles of upright stones. The whole country was at one time inhabited. Nearly every hill has ancient dwellings on the top and stone circles, also great cairns. The extraordinary resemblance, the identity in every point so struck Professor Palmer, who discovered this settlement, that in his ‘Desert of Exodus’ he engraved a Cornish bee-hive hut to show how it was a counterpart to the huts of Beersheba.”
Fig. 19.—OVEN AT NOUGARET, DEP. OF LOT.
(Dog Kennel under Shelf.)
But these bee-hive huts are themselves a reproduction in stone of the tents with which the primeval race wandered on the steppes of the Altai before ever they reached Palestine on the one hand and Europe on the other. The Nomad made his tent of skins stretched on poles. It was circular, and the smoke escaped through a hole in the top. When he ceased to ramble, he constructed his habitation on the same principle exactly as his tent, circular and domed. On the Siberian tundras and in Lapland there are still in use two sorts of huts; one, the smoke-hut, is precisely like a bee-hive habitation. It is, however, too small to allow of a fire being kept burning in the centre, and it is heated in this way—a fire is kindled and then allowed to go out. When extinct, the chimney hole at the top is closed, and the owner retires into his hut, which retains the heat for a great many hours. Sometimes, however, like the bo’h in the Hebrides, the fire is at the side, but owing to the smallness of the hovel, must be kept low. Castrén, in his travels among the Samojeds and Ostjaks, was sometimes obliged to spend months in one of these huts. At first he was obliged to go outside in all weathers, climb up the side of the hut and plug his chimney to keep in the warmth; but after a while he rigged up a bundle of old cloth attached to a pulley, and he was able by this means to block the opening from within, by pulling a string.