In Afric's Forest and Jungle Author:R. H. Stone, E. Finklea Florey Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: m IN NATIVE HOMES Unless we except the broad ways that lead from the gates to the market places, there is neither in Abeokuta nor in other native cities in... more » this part of Africa, anything that can be called a street. By Europeans, the dwellings are called "compounds." These are scattered about without reference to any particular plan and the lanes between them are always crooked and generally narrow. A "compound"is an enclosed space (generally in the form of a square) bounded by a mud wall about seven feet high. There is but one entrance to this enclosed space. At night or in times of danger, this is closed by strong double doors well barred. Inside, against this wall, the rooms of the house are built. These rooms are square and are covered by a thatched roof, which rests on the wall on the outside and on posts on the inside so as to give a covering for a piazza. extending all around the enclosed space on the inside. In this piazza the inmates mostly live, the rooms being chiefly used for dormitories orfor storage. Underneath the roof and on top of the ceiling, they store such products of the farm as need curing before using. This ceiling is made of palm poles covered with grass mats which in turn are covered with a thick coating of earth. For this reason a fire often sweeps away the roofs of the dwellings of the people without destroying their homes.1 After a big fire the people go out to the farms, get a supply of poles, grass, reeds and vines, and in a few days everything is as before. They frequently lose what was stored on the ceilings under the roofs. When the only entrance to the compound is closed, there is no way of entering it except over the roof, and the court of the compound or the enclosed central space is therefore very secure against thieves and beasts of prey ...« less