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The only remedy employed by the natives consists in little dry walls of crystallized gypsum, built on the crests of the dunes, together with hedges of dead palm-leaves. These defensive measures are aided by incessant labor; for every day the people take up in baskets the sand blown over to them the night before and carry it back to the other side of the dune." Sand Dunes and Sand Plains.

In the mean time he removed to the dwelling which had been erected for his accommodation at Santa Anna. It was a structure speedily raised after the fashion of the country. The walls were of split and flattened bamboo, tied together with the long fibres of a dried climbing plant; the roof was of palm-leaves, and the ceiling of reeds.

After the founding of Constantinople, the custom of great people carrying an Umbrella seems to have arisen, but in Rome it appears only to have been used as a luxury, never as a mark of distinction, Pliny speaks of Umbrellas made of palm-leaves, but from other sources we may gather that the Romans at all events in the days of the empire lavished as much splendour on their Umbrella as on all the articles of their dress.

The two cardinals cast their palm-leaves down to the people, and as they fell, fluttering uncertainly, now this way, now that, all eyes followed them to see who should be the happy ones to secure the precious emblems of benediction and absolution.

He showed us his house, a little hut covered with palm-leaves, situated in an enclosure at a small distance, on the bank of a rivulet, communicating with the bath. We judged from his harangue, that this good man took us for invalids, who had come to stay near the spring. His counsels and offers of hospitality were not altogether disinterested.

The house was of considerable size, built of palm-trees, thatched with palm-leaves; and even the doors and windows were composed of palm-leaves, not opening on hinges, but being hooked up or taken down like mats. There were open galleries round on either side, and several of the rooms were open also; and in these the hammocks of the men of the party were hung up.

The walls were made of the palm-leaves which I have before described, fixed in panels, very neat and pleasing to the eye, and perfectly weather-tight. The roof was high pitched, and had broad overhanging eaves, giving it very much the appearance of a Swiss cottage. A broad verandah ran round each side of the house, the rooms opening into it.

He stretched out his left hand in the darkness to draw an armful more of the dried palm-leaves beneath him, when his hand came in contact with something which rasped against the matted wall and fell heavily in the direction of where his fellow-prisoner lay.

The buildings, with the exception of the king's palace and mosque, being all of wood or bamboos standing on posts and mostly covered with thatch of palm-leaves, the appearance of the place has nothing to recommend it.

Landing here, the Spaniards visited a village, the inhabitants of which fled, some leaving their children behind. These were soothed by binding hawks' bells and trinkets round their arms. The huts were formed with the trunks of trees, interwoven with twigs and branches, and thatched with palm-leaves.