wrecked ships; boards from the decks form the flooring, masts and yards
appear as beams, cabin doors give entrance to the rooms.

The houses when I first went into them struck me as most dreary; no fire,
hardly any furniture, just a bare table, a wooden sofa which is nearly
always used as a bed, a bench, and perhaps a chair, with a seaman's chest
against the wall, a chimney-piece covered with a pinked newspaper hanging,
on which stood pieces of crockery, on the walls a few pictures and ancient
photographs. There are large open fire-places, but no grates or stoves,
the cooking being done on two iron bars supported by fixed stones.

The rooms are divided off by wooden partitions. There are generally two
bedrooms; the end one is also nearly always used as a kitchen, and the
groceries are usually kept there. On account of the high winds there are
generally windows only on the north of the house, which is the sunny side,
due to Tristan's being south of the equator.

Every house has a garden, but not used to grow vegetables or flowers,
which the people do not seem to care about, and certainly there are
difficulties owing to high winds, rats, fowls, and, not least, children.
They sometimes grow a few onions, cabbages and generally pumpkins: a few
pink roses and geraniums may be seen. Potatoes are their staple food, and
are grown in walled-in patches about three miles off. Each house has one
or two huts, in one of which they stow away their potatoes, and also a
lamb-house.

In the matter of clothing, the men have not much difficulty, as they
barter with the sailors on passing ships, giving in exchange the skins of
albatross and mollyhawks, the polished horns of oxen, small calf-skin bags
and penguin mats made by the women, and occasionally wild-cat skins. They