Sumatra is one of the largest islands in the Indian Archipelago, and the houses of the inhabitants are deserving of notice, inasmuch as they furnish a correct and curious specimen of the style of building, which the frequent occurrence of earthquakes renders the safest in the countries where such visitations are common.
The frames of the houses are of wood, the under-plates resting on pillars six or eight feet high, which have a sort of capital, but no base, and are wider at top than at bottom. The people appear to have no idea of architecture as a science, though much ingenuity is often shown in working up their materials. The general appearance of their houses is accurately represented in the annexed plate. For the floorings they lay whole bamboos, four or five inches in diameter, close to each other, and fasten them at the ends to the timbers. Across these are laid laths of split bamboo, about an inch wide and of the length of the room, which are tied down with filaments of the rattan, and over these are usually spread mats of different kinds. This sort of flooring has an elasticity alarming to strangers when they first tread on it.
The sides of the houses are generally closed in with bamboo, opened and rendered flat by notching or splitting the circular joints on the outside, chipping away the corresponding divisions within, and laying it to dry in the sun pressed down with weights. This is sometimes nailed to the upright timbers or bamboos, but in the country parts it is more commonly interwoven or matted in breadths of six inches, and a piece or sheet formed at once of the size required. In some places they use for the same purpose the inner bark procured from some particular trees. When they prepare to take it, the outer bark is first torn or cut away; the inner is then marked out with a proper tool to the requisite size, usually three cubits by one; it is afterwards beaten for some time with a heavy stick to loosen it from the stem, and being peeled off, laid in the sun to dry, care being taken to prevent its warping. The bark used in building has nearly the texture and hardness of wood; but the pliable and delicate bark of which clothing is made is procured from a bastard species of the bread-fruit.
The most general mode of covering houses is with the leaf of a kind of palm called nipah. These, before they are laid on, are formed into sheets about five feet long, and as deep as the length of the leaf will admit, which is doubled at one end over a slip or lath of bamboo. They are then disposed on the roof so that one sheet shall lap over the other, and are tied to the bamboos which serve for rafters.
THE NOSS IN SHETLAND.
Off Bressay is the most remarkable of the rock phenomena of Shetland, the Noss, a small high island, with a flat summit, girt on all sides by perpendicular walls of rock. It is only 500 feet in length, and 170 broad, and rises abruptly from the sea to the height of 160 feet. The communication with the coast of Bressay is maintained by strong ropes stretched across, along which a cradle or wooden chair is run, in which the passenger is seated. It is of a size sufficient for conveying across a man and a sheep at a time. The purpose of this strange contrivance is to give the tenant the benefit of putting a few sheep upon the Holm, the top of which is level, and affords good pasture. The animals are transported in the cradle, one at a time, a shepherd holding them upon his knees in crossing.
