Page:Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines.djvu/190

 from 7 to 7 feet. The rooms in the third, fourth, and fifth stories were found to diminish in size with each story. There is probably a mistake here, as the main longitudinal partition walls must have been carried up upon each other from bottom to top. A few of the doorways were measured and found to range from 2 feet wide by 4 feet high and 2 feet wide by 4 feet high. The scuttles or trap-doors in the floors, through which they descended into these rooms by means of ladders, were 3 feet by 2, 3 feet by 2, and 1 by 2 feet; and the window openings through the walls were, in inches, 14 by 14, 8 by 16, 16 by 20, and 18 by 18.

Mr. Ward then proceeds: "No room has more than two windows; very few have more than one. The back rooms usually have one or more round holes made through the walls from six to eight inches in diameter. These openings furnish the apartments with a scanty supply of light and air. The first story or the ground rooms are usually without doors or windows, the only entrance being through the scuttle-holes or doors in the roof, which "are within the rooms comprising the story immediately above. These basement rooms are used for store-rooms. Those in the upper stories are the rooms mostly inhabited. Those located in the front part of the building receive their light through the doors and windows before described. The back rooms have no other light than that which goes in through the scuttle-holes and the partition walls leading from the front rooms; that is, where a room is so situated as to have both. Others again have no other light than that which enters through the holes already described. Such rooms are always gloomy. Some families have as many as four or five rooms, one of which is set apart for cooking, and is furnished with a large fire-place for the purpose. Those who have only two or three rooms usually cook and sleep in the same apartment, and in such cases they cook in the usual fireplace, which stands in one corner of the room. No perceptible addition has been made to either of the buildings for many years; and it is evident that after the death or removal of their owners they were entirely neglected. Those in good condition are still occupied. From the best information attainable the original buildings were not erected all at one time, but were added to from time to time by additional rooms, including the second, third, and more stories. There are no regular terraces, the roof of