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Show HOUSES IN ZULULAND. They Lok Like Hlg llrehlvea, and Worn, en Hulld Them. The Zulu woman is the architect and builder of the Zulu house, and the style I of architecture is known in the colo- I nies as "wattle and daub." It looks like an exaggerated beehive, for the Zulu mind has this peculiarity, that it cannot grasp the idea of anything any-thing tiat is not round or elliptical in form. There are no squares in nature. To buld her house, the woman traces a circl-i oo the ground fourteen feet in diameter, and getting a number of long. liuber branches, she sticks them firmly Into the ground and then bends thera over and ties them with fiber obtained ob-tained from the numerous creepers, or "monkey ropes." Tbci she twines thicker creepers in and ott of these sticks, all round the circle of spaces about twelve inches apart, nd then taking wattle (a kind of coattse grass or reed), she thatches the edJico, leaving a small hole at the top for a chimney, and another hole three feet square for a door. In front of this she builds a covered way, ex-tendinf ex-tendinf outward about three feet, and the exterior of the house is finished by a coat.ng of "daub" or mud. She then seeks the nst of the white ant. nad digging them up, obtains a quantity of white clay, which sho beats to powder, dries, and then mixing it with water, kneads it until it is quite smooth. This she spreads all over the ground insido the hut, and beats it carefully until it is quite hard and free from cracks. This floor a good housewife house-wife will scour twice a day. with smooth stones, until it is like a piece of polished marble. The firenlace is near the door, and is simply a ring of thU clay to confine the eaibers in one place. The other necessaries found in a hut are a bundle of spear shafts drying, some tobacco and several bunches of millet hanging from the roof. Grouped around tho walls are tho three amasi (a species of sour milk) jars, the native beer jars and open jars holding grain. Of courso the dense wood smoke, rising, ris-ing, coats tho roof, millet and tobacco with soot.and long "fingers" of it hang in every direction; but the floor will bo clean enough to eat on, and as long as that is so, the social Mrs. Gruudy, of tho Zulu, i satisfied. |
