coolness is required, their place is taken by mats woven with the
pinnated leaves of sundry palms. This is a favourite industry
with the women, who make two kinds, one coarse, the other a neat
and close article, of rattan-tint until it becomes smoke-stained:
the material is so cheap and comfortable, that many of the
missionaries prefer it for walls to brick or boarding. The
windows are mere holes in the mats to admit light, and the doors
are cut with a Mpano (adze) from a single tree trunk, which would
be wilful waste if timber were ever wanting. The floor is
sometimes sandy, but generally of hard and level tamped clay, to
which the European would prefer boarding, and, as a rule, it is
clean--no fear of pythogenie from here! The pent-shaped roof of
rafters and thatch is water-tight except when the host of rats
disturb it by their nocturnal gambols.

Rich men affect five or six rooms, of which the principal
occupies the centre. The very poor must be contented with one;
the majority have two. The "but" combines the functions of hall,
dining-room, saloon and bachelor's sleeping quarters. The "ben"
contains a broad bed for the married, a standing frame of split
bamboo with mats for mattresses; it is usually mounted on props
to defend it from the Nchu'u or white ants, and each has its
mosquito bar, an oblong square, large enough to cover the whole
couch and to reach the ground; the material is either fine grass-
cloth, from the Ashira country, a light stuff called "Mbongo," or
calico and blue baft from which the stiffening has been washed
out. It is far superior to the flimsy muslin affairs supplied in
an Anglo-Indian outfit, or to the coarse matting used in Yoruba.
Provided with this solid defence, which may be bought in any
shop, one can indulge one's self by sleeping in the verandah