shed; at the other there is perhaps a pen for pigs; the remainder

is the evening lounge and al fresco banquet-hall of the

inhabitants. To some houses water is brought down the mountains in

bamboo pipes, perforated for the sake of sweetness. With the

Highland comparison in my mind, I was struck to remember the

sluttish mounds of turf and stone in which I have sat and been

entertained in the Hebrides and the North Islands. Two things, I

suppose, explain the contrast. In Scotland wood is rare, and with

materials so rude as turf and stone the very hope of neatness is

excluded. And in Scotland it is cold. Shelter and a hearth are

needs so pressing that a man looks not beyond; he is out all day

after a bare bellyful, and at night when he saith, 'Aha, it is

warm!' he has not appetite for more. Or if for something else,

then something higher; a fine school of poetry and song arose in

these rough shelters, and an air like 'Lochaber no more' is an

evidence of refinement more convincing, as well as more

imperishable, than a palace.

To one such dwelling platform a considerable troop of relatives and

dependants resort. In the hour of the dusk, when the fire blazes,

and the scent of the cooked breadfruit fills the air, and perhaps

the lamp glints already between the pillars and the house, you

shall behold them silently assemble to this meal, men, women, and

children; and the dogs and pigs frisk together up the terrace

stairway, switching rival tails. The strangers from the ship were

soon equally welcome: welcome to dip their fingers in the wooden

dish, to drink cocoanuts, to share the circulating pipe, and to

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