Hut circle

“ Towns there are none, except in certain parts; seldom do more than four or five houses stand in a group; the locality being changed at intervals for sanitary or superstitious purposes. A few upright posts planted in parallel lines, or in a circle, and occasionally interwoven with cane or leaves, support what may be called the hut 718 proper, which is a sharply sloping, well-thatched palm-leaf roof with projecting eaves, reaching to within three or four feet of the ground. ”

“ Perched on the perilous brink of that curving wall of rocks, with its low, irregular, patched and weather-beaten roof, and its rough-boarded and storm-beaten walls half hidden in a tangle of vines and bushes, the little hut looks, from a distance, as though it might once have been the strange habitation of some gigantic winged creature of prehistoric ages. ”

“ We made our hut much smaller, however, only 12 feet in diameter, and 8 or 9 feet high. First we procured two dozen light poles between 10 and 12 feet long. 125 These we set up about 18 inches apart in a circle like a stockade, the sticks being buried in the ground to a depth of 12 inches. At one side a space of 3 feet was allowed for a doorway. Inside the stockade we erected a working platform of planks supported on barrels, and standing on this we took two opposite poles, bent them inward and lashed
Fig. 132. Doorway of the Hut. their upper ends together. ”

“ In fact, except to one accustomed to the woods, it would be dangerous to go far away from the hut. As long as it is fine, you will find your way back by following your own tracks, but if the weather changed suddenly, and it came on to snow, your case would be hopeless. One of the advantages of placing our hut on a stream is that it forms a great aid to finding one's way back. ”

“ The rain has ceased, the clouds are rent and flying, and from among them the moon shines with a bluish lustre, strewing silver gleams upon the quiet road with its net-work of pools and ruts, upon the wildly-rushing Save with its foaming billows, upon the black roof of the hut which serves as a shelter for the ferrymen, and upon a rocking skiff which is fastened to the shore. ”

“ Our guide had gone back after bringing us thus far, and we never thought of having the slightest difficulty in reaching the hut again. Now, when we turned to go, the whole place seemed to have changed. There was no one to ask our way, and the dusk was falling. Each stony ridge we climbed over we imagined to be the last, and that we should see the hut from its summit. But the hut was nowhere: it had vanished. A kind of despair seized us as we wandered hither and thither in the gathering gloom, seeing around us naught but stones:
“A great grey chaos—a land half-made. ”

“ These they use as winter retreats and graneries, for they preserve a moderate temperature; and upon an invasion when the open country is plundered, these recesses remain unvioiated, either because the enemy is ignorant of them, or because he will not trouble himself with the search."
Hut-circles.—The habitations known as hut-circles are found in numberless localities throughout Britain, especially on upland moors that have been little disturbed by cultivation. They are generally associated with other prehistoric monuments, such as cairns, cromlechs, beehive houses, menhirs, souterrains, etc. ”

“ These natives have a curious predilection for building their huts on the sea-shore, and place them below the level of low water. They begin this curious style of architecture by building a long pier, or rather jetty, which extends far into the sea, and which keeps open a communication between the house and the shore.
At the end of this jetty the hut itself is situated, and is made of boarded walls and a thatched roof. Great as is the labor that is bestowed upon it, the house does not come up to our ideas of comfort. ”

“ Into the blinding snow the seven workers made their way. After strenuous efforts, a square of canvas was set up to prevent the snow blocking the newly-made tunnel, then all hands set to work to build a hut.
It was a toilsome task. Encumbered by their fur clothing and mittens, their faces cut with the frozen flakes, the seven manfully stuck to their work. ”

“ All that night rain poured in torrents and the wind howled round the hut in furious gusts. Now this hut with its framework of wood looks very fragile, and as it rocked and shook me in my bunk all night I wondered would it stand the strain. I was assured in the morning that it was built on very solid foundations and anchored firmly to the rock, and not at all likely to be blown over. That day and the following night the wind and rain continued, so we left the hut and tramped back to the Hermitage and there stayed for another two days. ”

“ In summer all they require is to be shaded from the sun, and for this a pile of bushes or a tree will suffice. The winter huts are a little more pretentious. These are sometimes erected on the level ground, but more frequently over an excavation three or four feet deep, and varying from ten to thirty feet in diameter. Round the brink of this hole willow poles are sunk upright in the ground and the tops drawn together, forming a conical structure, or the upper ends are bent over 372 and driven into the earth on the opposite side of the pit, thus giving the hut a semi-globular shape. ”

“ The huts here are like those already described, only they are dry because of the porous character of the ground. Three or four families live in one each having a private polog of deer-skins, of which there are several thicknesses on the floor. We were shown into one—the snuggest storm nest imaginable, and perfectly clean. The common hut is far otherwise; dogs mingle with the food, hair is everywhere, and strangely persistent smells that defy even the Arctic frosts. The children seemed in fair ratio with the adults. ”

“ Summer huts are light portable buildings, thrown up during hunting excursions in the interior, or on the sea-beach in the fishing-season. A frame is made of stakes driven into the ground, supporting a roof, and the whole covered with bark, or with green or dry branches, and skins or bark over all. The door is closed by bark or a curtain of skins. Each hut 103 is the rendezvous for a small colony, frequently covering twenty or thirty persons, all under the direction of one chief. ”

“ When we had advanced a good way by the side of Lochness, I perceived a little hut, with an old looking woman at the door of it. I thought here might be a scene that would amuse Dr Johnson: so I mentioned it to him. 'Let's go in,' said he. We dismounted, and we and our guides entered the hut. It was a wretched little hovel of earth only, I think, and for a window had only a small hole, which was stopped with a piece of turf, that was taken out occasionally to let in light. In the middle of the room or space which we entered, was a fire of peat, the smoke going out at a hole in the roof. ”

“ Next morning I was up betimes, eager to make acquaintance with my new surroundings. My first impression on coming out of my hut was that I was hemmed in on all sides by a dense growth of impenetrable jungle: and on scrambling to the top of a little hill close at hand, I found that the whole country as far as I could see was covered with low, stunted trees, thick undergrowth and "wait-a-bit" thorns. The only clearing, indeed, appeared to be where the narrow track for the railway had been cut. ”

“ Up on the hill-side, at the edge of the forest, where the ground had been partly cleared, was the place of the first summer camp. The summer huts were built above ground, of branches of trees, wattled with withies and twigs, and daubed with clay. Sometimes a man had only to repair the hut that he had lived in the summer before. But even if he had to build a new one, it was not such hard work as to build a winter hut. Before a man began to build his summer hut, he picked out a tree with a straight [16] trunk to act as the main support of his hut. ”

“ Such huts as these, however, are but seldom seen, the ordinary winter dwellings being made of bushes, as seen in an illustration on the next page. Near the entrance, but not within it, the fire is kindled, and at night the natives crowd into the hut, filling it so completely that a view of the interior displays nothing but a confused mass of human limbs. The reader will perceive that the luxury of a door has not been contemplated by the native architects—an omission which is perhaps rather fortunate, considering the crowded state of the interior. ”

“ The floor of the hut was about ten feet in diameter, [and the hut itself] was made of a frame of drift wood covered with sod, and was entered by a narrow tunnel two feet high and eighteen inches wide. We saw traces of a great many houses, showing that quite a large village was at one time located here. In some only a few decaying timbers were to be seen, in others all the timbers had vanished and only the excavation remained. Some six miles farther up the stream I noticed other ruins, indicating that many natives once lived here, though now their number has dwindled to one family. ”

“ But that was down in the creek, round the hut was the plain, barren here as elsewhere; no effort had been made to cultivate it or improve it, and the desert came up to the very doors. The only sign of human life was the refuse from the small household—an empty tin or two, fragments of broken bottles, and scraps of rag and paper, only that and the hut itself, and a small yard for horses and cattle, that was all—not a tree, not a green thing. ”

“ One awesome night, dark as pitch, when I lay awake in the hut and listened to the rain pouring and the rush of Roaring Creek as it carried its rain-swollen waters into the Arthur River, my thoughts veered round to the perennial scone. The rats that night were holding high carnival. They had discovered some figs in my swag. Among the bric-à-brac in the men’s hut, which was our kitchen, dining-room, and drawing-room in one, I had noticed a frying-pan with a large hole in the bottom. ”

“ By now the darkness has ceased to keep spread over us, as it were, the stretched web of a heavy curtain, but has grown thinner and more transparent with the tension, save that, in places (for instance, in the window of the hut) , it still lies in thick folds or clots as it peers at us with its sightless eyes.
Over the hummock-like roofs of the huts rise the church's steeple and the poplar trees; while hither and thither on the wall of the hut, the cracks and holes in the crumbling plaster have caused the wall to resemble the map of an unknown country. ”

“ In many bush huts, when the women have a taste for decoration, pink everlastings are tied up in thick bunches and inserted in a close compact row between the top of the hut wall and the sloping edge of the uncoiled rafters, so as to form a cornice, beautiful in itself, and also in picturesque harmony with the rude materials of the dwellings. ”

“ Such small circular pits are exceedingly common. At the bottom we find ashes, bones of animals, implements, and fragments of clay once forming a part of the superstructure, baked hard when [Pg 56] the hut was burned, and still having marks of the twigs and branches over which the clay had been plastered. We picture to ourselves the hut as mostly underground, with a diameter usually not exceeding one and one-half to two metres, excavated to a depth of one or two metres, the pit often surrounded by a rude wall of field stones. ”

“ We at once determined to make our hut here, [122] as the natural walls would save much work in its construction. The only material to be thought of was rocks. These we had to find beneath the snow, and then loosen them from the grasp of the frost. For this we fortunately had an ice-chisel—a bar of iron an inch in diameter and four feet long, bent at one end for a handle, and tempered and sharpened at the other. With this Bonsall loosened the rocks, and others bore them on their shoulders to the crevice. When a goodly pile was made we began to construct the walls. ”

“ The materials for their huts grow around them in the greatest abundance, a few forked upright poles form the walls, and bear others forming the roof; thin sticks tied horizontally or perpendicularly to the uprights, both inside and out, forming a double wall, complete the framework of the hut, which is then plastered with clay or earth, or covered with grass or “loandos,” or mats made of the dried stem of the papyrus. ”

“ The huts are long and low, with an arched roof, and vary in length from ten to twenty feet, with an average height of five feet, and a width of six. They consist of a neat framework of strips of bamboo, thatched with long coarse grass. Each hut is usually situated in a small well-fenced enclosure, and opposite to it on the beach is the cooking place, consisting of a small shed, under which the fire is made. ”

“ The main party put up a hut of rocks, canvas, boat- and snow-slabs, while selected men scoured the coasts for caches, sought land-game, and watched seal-holes, until utter darkness drove all to the hut. ”

“ One or two farm-buildings, strongly resembling the hut, stand out against the dark foliage at the back. In front of the hut extends a gentle partly-cultivated slope—several acres of land have been “cleared”—some for years, evidently, others so lately that the blackened stumps of trees still appear gloomily above the luxuriant grass. Here and there a snake-fence winds over a ridge, and is hidden again in a hollow; close to the house a small stream rushes along over rocks to that lake, as large as our own Derwentwater, which washes the base of the slope I have spoken of. ”