Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/211

 always to be credited with a more masterly style of workmanship than any of the servile tribes around them and in their employ. They had three distinct classes of buildings, one of a double concentric form, another cylindrical, and a third long and low. That which I designate the concentric hut consists of two compartments, the inner being the loftier and in shape like the inferior half of a cone, the outside one considerably lower and cylindrical in its form. The inner hut is covered by a low vaulted roof of its own, over which is placed another roof, conical in its design, and projecting five or six feet beyond the top of the outer compartment, supported at its extremity by a series of upright posts that form a shady verandah running round the whole. After the owner, with the help of his vassals, has procured the materials, and prepared the foundation by making a layer of level cement, the construction of the edifice is left to the women. A royal residence is always built by the royal wives. The circular sites upon which the structures are reared vary from twenty to forty feet in circumference; round their edge a trench is dug some ten or twelve inches deep and about five inches wide, into which are planted loose bundles of strong reeds, when the trench is filled up with soil again. To bind the loose reeds together several palm-leaf cords are woven amongst them, and as these are drawn tighter and tighter they have the effect of giving the structure a conical form, arising from the tapering character of the reeds themselves; these are then trimmed off evenly at a height of about twelve feet from the ground, after which the outside, and not unfrequently the inside also, is plastered over with