tail, slightly bushy, but tapering to a point. They do not bark, but have
the long melancholy howl of the dingo or wild dog of Australia.

THEIR VILLAGE. DESCRIPTION OF THEIR HUTS.

At length some of us found our way to the huts of the natives which were
close at hand, and had thus an opportunity of examining one of them
minutely, besides verifying what we had before seen only from a distance,
and with the aid of the telescope. The distinctive characters of these
huts consist in their being long and tunnel-like, drooping and
overhanging at each end, raised from the ground upon posts, and thatched
over. The four huts composing the village were placed in two adjacent
clearings, fifty or sixty yards in length, screened from the beach by a
belt of small trees and brushwood, behind is the usual jungle of the
wooded islands of the Archipelago, with a path leading through it towards
the centre of the island. A solitary hut stood perched upon the ridge
near the summit shaded by cocoa-palms, and partially hid among the bushes
and tall grass. It differed from those of the village in having the posts
projecting through the roof, but whether used as a dwelling or not, is a
matter of conjecture. It may possibly have been used for the reception of
the dead. In the village an approximate measurement gave thirty feet as
the length, nine the breadth, and thirteen the height in centre of one of
these huts--the one figured in the accompanying plate; the annexed
woodcut gives an end view of another. All four were built upon exactly
the same plan. The supporting posts are four in number, and raise the
floor about four and a half feet from the ground, leaving a clear space
beneath. Before entering the body of the hut each post passes through an
oval disc of wood, a foot and a half in diameter, the object of which is
probably to prevent the ingress into the dwelling of snakes, rats, or
other vermin, most likely the Mus indicus, with which all the islands to
the westward are overrun. To the stout uprights are lashed transverse
bars supporting three long parallel timbers running the whole length of
the floor; on these seven or eight transverse poles are laid, crossed by
about a dozen longitudinal and slighter ones, on which a flooring of long
strips of the outer wood of the coconut-tree is laid across. After
penetrating the floor, the main posts rise five feet higher, where they
are connected at top by others as tie-beams, which cross them, and