Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/178

 This town, or koros, as it was called, contained about fifty houses. They were built of the same material as those at the other islands, but were differently constructed: the roofs being very steep, and the ridge-pole  projecting at each end, often ornamented with shells.

FIJI CHIEF, TUI LEVUKA.

This koros was situated in a grove of mangrove bushes, surrounded by many bread-fruit, cocoanut, and banana  trees. The interior of their houses was kept quite clean. The house of the chief, Tui Levuka, was a large, barn-like structure, nearly two hundred feet square. The roof was very high and peaked, and there were two narrow  openings, or doorways, one at each end. Several of us