46 HABITS AND CUSTOMS.

dress thereunto attached. The expense of building a house of this description is very trifling ; the poorest people, therefore, are able to erect their own tukkoli. Wood may be cut in the forests without any charge being made for it ; certainly those who do not happen to grow corn, and consequently have no straw, are obliged to buy this material. The expense, however, rarely exceeds from five to ten piasters, (less than three shillings ;) for which sum, a sufficient quantity may be bought to keep out every drop of water during the severest shower. Labourers are not paid, for each man assists his neighbour gratuitously. These houses present another and very desirable advantage, putting aside the consideration that the material costs a mere trifle and the building but little trouble ; for every man can have his house carried away, by ten or twelve men, in two divisions, and quickly again erected in a different place, if the site did not please him, or a disagreeable neighbour rendered his prior residence mipleasant to him. If fire break out in a village, no attempt is made to extinguish it, as it would be labour in vain, but the houses nearest to the seat of conflagration are conveyed out of the reach of danger, and a limit is thus put to the raging element. Whole villages are sometimes carried away, when an insect happens to infest the neighbourhood, and renders residence in a certain district insupportable. The animal is the ricinus,* called * Omithomyzes, a family of apterous and parasitic insects, vul-