care displayed in the work of construction, show wide differences. The
houses of the Kayans are perhaps better and more solidly built than any
others and may be taken as the type. Each house is built to accommodate
many families; an average house may contain some forty to fifty,
making up with children and slaves some two or three hundred persons;
while some of the larger houses are built for as many as a hundred
and twenty families, or some five to six hundred persons. The house
is always close to a river, and it usually stands on the bank at a
distance of 20 to 50 yards from the water, its length lying parallel
to the course of the river. The plan of the house is a rectangle,
of which the length generally much exceeds the width (Pl. 34).

Its roof is always a simple ridge extending the whole length of the
house, and is made of shingles of BILIAN (ironwood) or other hard
and durable kind of wood. The framework of the roof is supported at
a height of some 25 to 30 feet from the ground on massive piles of
ironwood, and the floor is supported by the same piles at a level some
7 or 8 feet below the cross-beams of the roof. The floor consists
of cross-beams morticed to the piles, and of very large planks of
hard wood laid upon them parallel to the length of the house. The
projecting eaves of the roof come down to a level midway between
that of the roof-beams and that of the floor, and the interval of
some 4 to 5 feet between the eaves and the floor remains open along
the whole length of the front of the house (I.E. the side facing the
river), save for a low parapet which bounds the floor along its outer
edge. This space serves to admit both light and air, and affords an
easy view over the river to those sitting in the house. The length
of the house is in some cases as much as 400 yards, but the average
length is probably about 200 yards. The width of the floor varies
from about 30 to 60 feet; the whole space between roof and floor is