UGANDA AND THE WAGANDA. 173 of these courts one or more houses are built, those in the inner courts being occupied by the oAvner and his harem, while those in the outer ones are tenanted by the slaves. All the chiefs of high rank have such establishments in the country as well as their town house at the capital. The houses of the bakopi, or peasants, in the villages have generally only one court in front of the house, and many have no courts at all, but stand singly here and there among the vast banana-groves which surround each village. The houses are usually circular or dome-shaped in form, and being thatched down to the ground, look like huge bee-hives. The material employed is the stout stems of the tall tiger-grass, which attains a height of from fifteen to twenty feet. A ring of fine grass, closely bound round with the fibrous outer part of the banana stem, is laid on the ground, and a number of the tigergrass stems securely tied to it with strips of papyrus ; then a second and third ring are added at intervals of about fifteen inches. The framework so formed is now raised on poles on the site of the intended house, and more rings are added, fresh tiger -grass ribs being worked in as the structure widens. At length, when the curvature of the rings becomes sufficiently slight to allow of these same steins being bent without breaking, the rings are formed of them instead of the fine grass employed at first, the whole umbrella-shaped frame being gradually raised