of palm called nipah. These, previous to their being
laid on, are formed into sheets of 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 as that one
sheet shall lap over the other, and are tied to the bamboos which serve
for rafters. There are various other and more durable kinds of covering
used. The kulitkayu, before described, is sometimes employed for this
purpose: the galumpei--this is a thatch of narrow split bamboos, six feet
in length, placed in regular layers, each reaching within two feet of the
extremity of that beneath it, by which a treble covering is formed:
iju--this is a vegetable production so nearly resembling horse-hair as
scarcely to be distinguished from it. It envelopes the stem of that
species of palm called anau, from which the best toddy or palm wine is
procured, and is employed by the natives for a great variety of purposes.
It is bound on as a thatch in the manner we do straw, and not
unfrequently over the galumpei; in which case the roof is so durable as
never to require renewal, the iju being of all vegetable substances the
least prone to decay, and for this reason it is a common practice to wrap
a quantity of it round the ends of timbers or posts which are to be fixed
in the ground. I saw a house about twenty miles up Manna River, belonging
to Dupati Bandar Agung, the roof of which was of fifty years standing.
The larger houses have three pitches in the roof; the middle one, under
which the door is placed, being much lower than the other two. In smaller
houses there are but two pitches, which are always of unequal height, and
the entrance is in the smaller, which covers a kind of hall or cooking
room.

There is another kind of house, erected mostly for a temporary purpose,
the roof of which is flat and is covered in a very uncommon, simple, and
ingenious manner. Large, straight bamboos are cut of a length sufficient
to lie across the house, and, being split exactly in two and the joints
knocked out, a first layer of them is disposed in close order, with the
inner or hollow sides up; after which a second layer, with the outer or
convex sides up, is placed upon the others in such manner that each of
the convex falls into the two contiguous concave pieces, covering their
edges; the latter serving as gutters to carry off the water that falls
upon the upper or convex layer.*