pretension to order. In general, these singular structures were about
thirty or thirty-five feet in length, breadth, and height; but many were
much larger, and a few were of prodigious length. In some of the
villages there were dwellings two hundred and forty feet long, though in
breadth and height they did not much exceed the others. [ Brebeuf,
Relation des Hurons, 1635, 31. Champlain says that he saw them, in 1615,
more than thirty fathoms long; while Vanderdonck reports the length,
from actual measurement, of an Iroquois house, at a hundred and eighty
yards, or five hundred and forty feet! ] In shape they were much like an
arbor overarching a garden-walk. Their frame was of tall and strong
saplings, planted in a double row to form the two sides of the house,
bent till they met, and lashed together at the top. To these other poles
were bound transversely, and the whole was covered with large sheets of
the bark of the oak, elm, spruce, or white cedar, overlapping like the
shingles of a roof, upon which, for their better security, split poles
were made fast with cords of linden bark. At the crown of the arch,
along the entire length of the house, an opening a foot wide was left for
the admission of light and the escape of smoke. At each end was a close
porch of similar construction; and here were stowed casks of bark,
filled with smoked fish, Indian corn, and other stores not liable to
injury from frost. Within, on both sides, were wide scaffolds, four feet
from the floor, and extending the entire length of the house, like the
seats of a colossal omnibus. [ Often, especially among the Iroquois,
the internal arrangement was different. The scaffolds or platforms were
raised only a foot from the earthen floor, and were only twelve or
thirteen feet long, with intervening spaces, where the occupants stored
their family provisions and other articles. Five or six feet above was
another platform, often occupied by children. One pair of platforms
sufficed for a family, and here during summer they slept pellmell,
in the clothes they wore by day, and without pillows. ] These were