ed from place to place. In the whole house
there was not a single nail or spike: all joints were made by exactly
corresponding notches and secured by cinnet, that is cordage made from
the dried fibre of the coco-nut husk. The timber of the best houses was
the wood of the bread-fruit tree; and, if protected against damp, it
would last fifty years. The floor of the house was composed of stones,
overlaid with fine gravel and sand. In the centre of the floor was the
fire-place, a circular hollow two or three feet in diameter and a few
inches deep, lined with hardened clay. It was not used for cooking, but
for the purpose of lighting up the house by night. The cooking was never
done in the house, but always in the open air outside on an oven of hot
stones. An ordinary Samoan house consisted of a single apartment, which
served as the common parlour, dining-room, and bedroom of the family.
But at night small tents made of bark-cloth were hung from the
ridge-pole, and under them the various members of the family slept
separately, the tents serving them at the same time as curtains to
protect them against the mosquitoes. Formerly, the houses of the
principal chiefs were surrounded with two fences; the outer of the two
was formed of strong posts and had a narrow zigzag entrance, several
yards long, leading to an opening in the inner fence, which was made of
reeds. But with the advent of a more peaceful epoch these fortified
enclosures for the most part disappeared. Houses constructed on the
Tongan model were often very substantially built: a double row of posts
and cross-beams supported the roof. These houses were found better able
to resist the high winds which prevail at one season of the year.[38]

[38] Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._. ii. 145 _sqq._; J. E.
Erskine, _op. cit._ pp. 45-47; T. H. Hood, _Notes of a Cruise in
H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific_ (Edinburgh, 1863), p. 32;
Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa,"
_Les Missions Catholiques_, iii. (1870) p. 135; G. Turner,
_Samoa_, pp. 152 _sqq._; S. Ella, _op. cit._ pp. 634 _sq._; J.
B. Stair, _Old Samoa,_ pp. 105 _sqq._, 153 _sqq._; G. Brown,
_Melanesians and Polynesians_, pp. 24 _sqq._

Like the rest of the Polynesians, the Samoans are an agricultural
people, and subsist mainly by the fruits of the earth, though the
lagoons and reefs furnish them with a large supply of fish and
shell-fish, of which they are very fond. The