re simple, of a very temporary
character, and requiring but little skill or labour to construct them. In
the summer season, or when the weather is fine, they consist of little
more than a few bushes laid one upon the other, in the form of a
semicircle, as a protection from the wind, for the head, which is laid
usually close up to this slight fence. In the winter, or in cold or wet
weather, the semicircular form is still preserved, but the back and sides
are sheltered by branches raised upon one end, meeting at the top in an
arch, and supported by props in front, the convex part being always
exposed to the wind. The sizes of these huts depends upon the facilities
that may be afforded for making them, the number of natives, and the
state of the weather.

[Note 75: "Travelled northerly for 20 miles; at evening encamped at
Tarcone, adjacent to the station (then being formed) of Drs. Bernard
and Kilgour. The greater part of the servants at this establishment
had been convicts, they were in a state of great insubordination.
My native attendants pointed out an extensive weir, 200 feet long
and five feet high; they said it was the property of a family,
and emphatically remarked, "that white men had stolen it and their
country;" the Yow-ew-nil-lurns were the original inhabitants. "Tapoe,"
the Mount Napier of Mitchell, is an isolated hill of volcanic
formation; the crater is broken down on the west side to its base.
The great swamp is skirted by low hills and well grassed open forest
land; the natives are still the undisputed occupants, no white men
having been there to dispossess them. The people who occupy the
country have fixed residences; at one village were 13 large huts,
they are warm and well constructed, in shape of a cupola or "kraal;" a
strong frame of wood is first made, and the whole covered with thick
turf, with the grass inwards; there are several varieties; those like a
kraal are sometimes double, having two entrances, others are
demicircular; some are made with boughs and grass, and last are the
temporary screens; one hut measured 10 feet diameter by five feet high,
and sufficiently strong for a man on horseback to ride over.

"Left early, attended by Pevay, to reconnoitre the country. In the
marshes numerous trenches were again met with; these resembled more the
works of civilized than of savage men; they were of considerable extent;
one continuous treble line measured 500 yards in length, two feet in
width, an