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Thus ignorant in sciences and arts, and unpractised in trade or manufacture, military exercises, war, and the preparation for war, was their employment, hunting their pleasure. They dwelt in cottages of wicker-work plastered with clay and thatched with rushes, where they sat with their families, their officers and domestics, round a fire made in the middle of the house.
Up to this time the ladies had found themselves unable to render any very material assistance; yet they had not been altogether idle, for under Doctor Henderson's directions, and with his assistance, they had succeeded in luring into large wicker-work baskets, which the doctor had very ingeniously framed, the whole of the fowls; the capture consisting of three cocks, fourteen or fifteen hens, and a couple of broods of chickens.
On the raft was a cradle of white wicker-work lined with down, upon which lay a man-child of such exquisite beauty that he could scarce have been born of mortal parents. His body was bare, but round his neck was a glistening chain of marvellously wrought gold, fastened to which was this gem lying on his breast.
A hamper of about six feet in diameter, and the same height, made by the fisherman of the roughest wicker-work, is placed in a side stream of the rock, in the bed of the river. The anxiety of the salmon to mount up the stream is so great, that he forces himself through a hole into the hamper, as the easiest way of advancing upwards, from which position he cannot again escape.
In the midst of the panic a body plunged or was pitched headlong down the hatchway, falling near Ben-Hur. He beheld the half-naked carcass, a mass of hair blackening the face, and under it a shield of bull-hide and wicker-work a barbarian from the white-skinned nations of the North whom death had robbed of plunder and revenge. How came he there?
The huts were of various shapes and sizes, and very simple in construction. They were built upon the bare ground; some were supported by four corner posts, twelve or fifteen feet high, and from thirty to forty feet long, the walls being made of thin laths connected with wicker-work and plastered with clay.
With the means thus accruing I proceeded to procure at intervals, cambric muslin, very fine, in pieces of twelve yards each; twine; a lot of the varnish of caoutchouc; a large and deep basket of wicker-work, made to order; and several other articles necessary in the construction and equipment of a balloon of extraordinary dimensions.
The granaries are formed of wicker-work supported upon upright pedestals of either hard wood or of stone, to resist the white ants; the wicker-work is smeared with clay and cow-dung, and the roof is thatched in a manner similar to the house. The Baris are a great pastoral people, and possess immense herds of cattle.
Except for the external entrances, doors had been abolished; portieres of plush, satin, and Oriental silk closed all openings in winter; and during long sultry Southern summers were replaced by draperies of lace, and wicker-work screens where growing ivy and smilax trained their cool green leaves, and graceful tendrils.
"I rode leisurely in the rear through the thatched huts of the Pimas. Each abode consisted of a dome-shaped wicker-work about six feet high, and from twenty to fifty feet in diameter, thatched with straw or cornstalks. In front is usually a large arbor, on top of which is piled the cotton on the pod for drying.
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