rice and millet or with jars of preserved meats. Just at the left on
the floor, as one enters the second story, is an earth-filled square
corner walled in by two poles. On this earth are three stones --
the fireplace, where each year a chicken is cooked in a household
ceremony at the close of rice harvests.

Rising above the second story is a third. In the smaller dwellings
this third story is only an attic of the second, but in the larger
buildings it is an independent story. To be sure, it is entered through
the floor, but a ladder is used, and its floor is of strong heavy
boards. It is at all times a storeroom, usually only for cereals. In
the smaller houses it amounts simply to a broad shelf about the height
of one's waist as he stands on the floor of the second story and his
head and upper body rise through the hole in the floor. In the larger
houses a person may climb into the third story and work there with
practically as much freedom as in the second.

The 5-foot ridgepole of the steep, heavy, grass roof is supported
by two posts rising from the basal timbers of the third story. The
roof falls away sharply from the ridgepole not only at the sides
but at the ends, so that, except at the ridge, the roof appears
square. Immediately beneath both ends of the ridgepole there is a small
opening in the grass through which the smoke of the cooking fires is
supposed to escape. However, I have scarcely ever seen smoke issue
from them, and, since the entire inner part of the building from the
floor of the second story to the ridgepole is thickly covered with
soot, it seems that little unconsumed carbon escapes through the
smoke holes. The lower part of the roof, for 3 1/2 feet, descends at
a less steep angle, thus forming practically an awning against sun
and rain. Its lower edge is about 4 feet from the ground and projects