HUTS.

Huts and Snow-Houses.—­In making a depot, it is usual to build a house; often the men must pass weeks in inactivity, and they had better spend their time in making their quarters comfortable than in idleness.  Whatever huts are used by the natives are sure, if made with extra care, to be good enough for European travellers.

Log-huts.—­In building log-huts, four poles are planted in the ground, to correspond to the four corners; against these, logs are piled one above another as in the drawing below; they are so deeply notched where their ends are crossed, that the adjacent sides are firmly dovetailed.  When the walls are entirely completed, the door and windows are chopped out.

[Sketch of cabin].

The spaces between the logs must be caulked with moss, etc., or the log-cabin will be little better than a log-cage.  It requires a great many logs to make a hut; for, supposing the walls to be 8 feet high, and the trees to average 8 inches in diameter, twelve trees would be required to build up one side, or forty-eight for all four walls.  Other timber would also be wanted for the roof.

Underground Huts are used in all quarters of the globe.  The experience of our troops when encamped before Sebastopol during an inclement season told strongly in their favour.  Their timely adoption was the salvation of the British army.  They are essentially, nothing else than holes in the ground, roofed over, fig. 1.

[Sketch of roof and geometrical measure].

The shape and size of the hole corresponds to that of the roof it may be possible to procure for it; its depth is no greater than requisite for sitting or standing.  If the roof has a pitch of 2 feet in the middle, the depth of the hole need not exceed 4 1/2 feet.  In the Crimea, the holes were rectangular, and were roofed like huts.

Where there is a steep hillside, a a’, fig. 2, an underground hut, b, is easily contrived; because branches laid over its top, along the surface of the ground, have sufficient pitch to throw off the rain.  Of course the earth must be removed from a’, at the place intended for the doorway.

Reed Huts.—­The reed huts of the Affej Arabs, and other inhabitants of the Chaldean marshes, are shaped like wagon-roofs, and are constructed of semicircular ribs of reeds, planted in the ground, one behind the other, at equal distances apart; each rib being a faggot of reeds of 2 feet in diameter.  For strength, they are bound round every yard with twisted bands of reeds.  When this framework has been erected, it is covered with two or three sheets of fine reed matting (see “Matting"), which forms a dwelling impervious to rain.  Some of the chiefs’ huts are as much as 40 feet long, and 12 high; the other huts are considerably smaller.  Many of these reed dwellings are contained in compounds enclosed by lofty reed fences; the reeds being planted upright, and simply strung together by a thread run through them, as they stand side by side. (See “Straw and Reed Walls.”)