The houses of their town are built upon piles, or pillars, four or five feet above the ground:  Upon these is laid a floor of bamboo canes, which are placed at some distance from each other, so as to leave a free passage for the air from below; the walls also are of bamboo, which are interwoven, hurdlewise, with small sticks, that are fastened perpendicularly to the beams which form the frame of the building:  It has a sloping roof, which is so well thatched with palm leaves, that neither the sun nor the rain can find entrance.  The ground over which this building is erected, is an oblong square.  In the middle of one side is the door, and in the middle between that and the end of the house, towards the left hand, is a window:  A partition runs out from each end towards the middle, which, if continued, would divide the whole floor into two equal parts, longitudinally; but they do not meet in the middle, so that an opening is left over-against the door:  Each end of the house therefore, to the right and left of the door, is divided into two rooms, like stalls in a stable, all open towards the passage from the door to the wall on the opposite side:  In that next the door to the left hand, the children sleep; that opposite to it, on the right hand, is allotted to strangers; the master and his wife sleep in the inner room on the left hand, and that opposite to it is the kitchen.  There is no difference between the houses of the poor and the rich, but in the size; except that the royal palace, and the house of a man, whose name was Gundang, the next in riches and influence to the king, were walled with boards, instead of being wattled with sticks and bamboo.

As the people are obliged to abandon the town, and live in the rice-fields at certain seasons, to secure their crops from the birds and the monkies, they have occasional houses there for their accommodation.  They are exactly the same as the houses in the town, except that they are smaller, and are elevated eight or ten feet above the ground instead of four.

The disposition of the people, as far as we could discover it, is good.  They dealt with us very honestly, except, like all other Indians, and the itinerant retailers of fish in London, they asked sometimes twice, and sometimes thrice as much for their commodities as they would take.  As what they brought to market belonged, in different proportions, to a considerable number of the natives, and it would have been difficult to purchase it in separate lots, they found out a very easy expedient, with which every one was satisfied:  They put all that was bought of one kind, as plantains, or cocoa-nuts, together; and when we had agreed for the heap, they divided the money that was paid for it among those of whose separate property it consisted, in a proportion corresponding with their contributions.  Sometimes, indeed, they changed our money, giving us 240 doits, amounting to five shillings, for a Spanish dollar, and ninety-six, amounting to two shillings, for a Bengal rupee.