The natives build their huts on rising ground under a tuft of trees; they are of an oblong square, and the eaves reach to the ground. The door is on one side, and very low, their windows are at one end, or both. The walls are composed of several layers of reeds covered with thatch, and are of considerable thickness. Over the beams, that compose the eaves, they lay a net made of grass, which is also thatched very close and thick. Their fires are made in the center upon the floor, and the door serves them for a chimney. Their houses, therefore, of course, must be full of smoke; and we observed that every thing brought out of them smelt strong of it; but use, which is a kind of second nature, makes them insensible of the inconvenience, or they would have found out some means to have removed it; for necessity is the mother of invention. We saw but few of their houses, and those few were mostly deserted, their inhabitants having forsaken them through fear of us, who, doubtless, appeared as strange kind of beings to them as they did to us.

Voyaging Accounts