Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/84

 We now entered our future residence, which was built somewhat upon the model of an Indian bungalow, being low and long and thickly thatched, and surrounded on all four sides by a verandah, formed by the continuation of the roof itself, until its eaves came to within seven feet of the ground. The rooms were but four in number, standing side by side in the same straight line, and all opening both into one another and into the verandah outside, so that no room had less than two doors, while the two middle rooms had of course three each. Advantage had been taken of the verandah to add a little more accommodation to the very small house, in the shape of four little chambers, each eight feet square, contrived at its four external corners by a rough continuation of the walls of the house. These little closets or cells were intended for pantry, larder, and so forth, but the addition of a door and window to two of them rendered it possible to introduce a small camp bedstead and one chair, in case an extra sleeping room was required.

The walls of the house were built of "pug," which means simply well-pounded mud, and has the disadvantage of refusing to adhere firmly to the frames of doors and casements, so that the banging of either, in windy weather, is apt to bring large pieces of the material crumbling down, and the house never looks tidy. Moreover, as we soon found out, no matter how neatly these walls may be finished by the plasterer, to paper them properly is all but impossible. The strongest paste in the deftest hands will not always suffice to cement the paper so firmly as that it and the wall shall not soon show signs of parting company, and in one of our rooms we could