At Tette, on the Zambesi, there are ridges running parallel to the banks of the river, with hollows between them, which may have served as supplementary channels during extraordinary floods; and, to avoid the low-lying malaria, which is of greater specific gravity than common air, the Portuguese colonists erect their houses on these ridges. The hollows serve as streets or roadways, and also as channels to carry off the deadly exhalations, which, being heavier than air, naturally seek the lowest level. The dwelling rooms are also further elevated by being built over a basement, which serves as a store-room, the elevation of a few feet frequently making all the difference between the chance of catching fever and of escaping it. In these store-rooms they build isolated platforms about 3ft. high, on forked posts of hard wood, which are carefully swept every morning, while salt is strewed around their base to prevent the white ants approaching. Probably tar or turpentine would have the same effect, but in remote regions these are not always at command. The tarred wood of our iron house was never touched; and the camphor wood of India is valued very much on account of its immunity from their attacks.
PORTUGUESE HOUSE—ZAMBEZI RIVER.
When the Portuguese on the Zambesi build large houses that are to be divided into rooms, they build into the central and side walls a row of pillars, into the thickness of which stout poles are built, with the forks left upon them, and perhaps other rows of pillars without the connecting walls are built for the verandah.
Dr. Kirk, when consulted as to the best method of colonising the Shire, or Sheeree River, gave it as his opinion that the estates lying low in the fertile valleys should be cultivated by natives only (who in their own country do not seem susceptible to the deadly influence of fever, though when removed to another locality that is not perceptibly worse, they are as liable to be attacked as Europeans), and that the proprietors should have their residences upon the hills, as far as possible above the level of the malaria, with a small military force at their disposal, to keep order when necessary among the inhabitants of the valley. This certainly appears to be the only feasible plan of occupying such a country with any benefit to the various parties concerned.
Rio Negro huts.
An Indian cottage, on the banks of the Rio Negro, has been thus described:—“The main supports are trunks of some forest tree, of heavy and durable wood; but the light rafters are the straight, cylindrical, and uniform stems of the Jará palm. The roof is thatched with the large triangular leaves of the Caraná palm in regular alternate rows, neatly bound with sipos or forest creepers. The door is a frame of thin strips of wood neatly thatched over. It is of the split stems of the Pashiuba palm. In one corner is a heavy harpoon for cow-fish; it is of the black wood of the Pashiuba barriguda. By its side is a blowpipe, 10ft. or 12ft. long, and a little quiver of small poisoned arrows hangs near it. With these the Indian procures birds for food or for gay feathers, or shoots the hog or tapir; and it is from the stem and spines of two palms that they are made. His great bassoon-like musical instruments are of palm stems; the cloth to wrap his valued feather ornaments is a fibrous palm spathe, and the rude chest for his treasures is woven from palm leaves. His hammock, his bowstring, and his fishing line are fibres of palm leaves; the first from the miriti, and the other two from the tucum. The comb on his head is the hard bark of a palm. He makes fish-hooks of the spines, or uses them to puncture on his skin the peculiar markings of his tribe. His children eat the agreeable red and yellow fruit of the pupunha or peach palm, and from the assai he has prepared and offers you a favourite drink. A carefully-suspended gourd contains oil from the fruit of another, and the long elastic-plaited cylinder used for squeezing dry the mandiocca pulp to make his bread is of the bark of one of the singular climbing palms which alone can resist for any considerable time the action of the poisonous juice. In each of these cases a species is chosen adapted to the special object to which it is to be applied, and often having different uses which no other plant can serve so well.”
Papuan tree houses.
The arboreal dwellings of the Horaforo tribe in New Guinea have been thus described by Dr. J. Coulter:—"Against each tree rested a notched pole, and at a whistle from the chief, answered by hundreds of similar sounds in every direction, natives with flambeaux flitted down the poles till the whole forest was brilliantly illuminated. In fact, they had their houses, or rather nests, in the trees, and when they retired for the night the pole was hauled up to prevent surprise. These abodes were made by thinning away some of the branches, and laying horizontal poles on others sufficiently stout to bear them; the uprights are cut with forks, which rest on the lower branches, while their upper ends are lashed with cocoa-nut fibre to those above; the sides are formed by bamboos lashed closely together; the roofing is also of cane covered by sheets of thick bark sewed together, and perfectly proof against the heavy rains. The flooring is laid with split bamboos and light wood, and the walls are lined with stout matting, which gives sufficient shelter against the piercing winds. The shape varies according to the spread of the tree; sometimes when they extend all round an extensive house is made to inclose the whole tree; the smallest will measure 16ft. square, but sometimes they are longer and less wide; and when the whole tree is built in they are three times as large. They are perfectly safe, for the lower branches are as thick as an ordinary tree.”
