Other Accounts ...
Endeavour Voyage Maps
James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia
Transcript of Cook's Journal
Joseph Banks's Journal
Sydney Parkinson's Journal
Description of the Inhabitants
Index
Search
Contact us
Their houses are the most inartificially made of any thing among them, being scarcely equal, except in size, to an English dog-kennel: they are seldom more than eighteen or twenty feet long, eight or ten broad, and five or six high, from the pole that runs from one end to the other, and forms the ridge, to the ground: the framing is of wood, generally slender sticks, and both walls and roof consist of dry grass and hay, which, it must be confessed, is very tightly put together; and some are also lined with the bark of trees, so that in cold weather they must afford a very comfortable retreat. The roof is sloping, like those of our barns, and the door is at one end, just high enough to admit a man, creeping upon his hands and knees: near the door is a square hole, which serves the double office of window and chimney, for the fire-place is at that end, nearly in the middle between the two sides: in some conspicuous part, and generally near the door, a plank is fixed, covered with carving after their manner: this they value as we do a picture, and in their estimation it is not an inferior ornament: the side-walls and roof project about two feet beyond the walls at each end, so as to form a kind of porch, in which there are benches for the accommodation of the family. That part of the floor which is allotted for the fire-place, is enclosed in a hollow square, by partitions either of wood or stone, and in the middle of it the fire is kindled. The floor, along the inside of the walls, is thickly covered with straw, and upon this the family sleep.
 |
Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 457 - 458, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/455.html