The most general mode of covering houses is with the atap, which is the leaf of a species of palm called nipah.  These, previous to their being laid on, are formed into sheets of about five feet long and as deep as the length of the leaf will admit, which is doubled at one end over a slip or lath of bamboo; they are then disposed on the roof so as that one sheet shall lap over the other, and are tied to the bamboos which serve for rafters.  There are various other and more durable kinds of covering used.  The kulitkayu, before described, is sometimes employed for this purpose:  the galumpei—­this is a thatch of narrow split bamboos, six feet in length, placed in regular layers, each reaching within two feet of the extremity of that beneath it, by which a treble covering is formed:  iju—­this is a vegetable production so nearly resembling horse-hair as scarcely to be distinguished from it.  It envelopes the stem of that species of palm called anau, from which the best toddy or palm wine is procured, and is employed by the natives for a great variety of purposes.  It is bound on as a thatch in the manner we do straw, and not unfrequently over the galumpei; in which case the roof is so durable as never to require renewal, the iju being of all vegetable substances the least prone to decay, and for this reason it is a common practice to wrap a quantity of it round the ends of timbers or posts which are to be fixed in the ground.  I saw a house about twenty miles up Manna River, belonging to Dupati Bandar Agung, the roof of which was of fifty years standing.  The larger houses have three pitches in the roof; the middle one, under which the door is placed, being much lower than the other two.  In smaller houses there are but two pitches, which are always of unequal height, and the entrance is in the smaller, which covers a kind of hall or cooking room.

There is another kind of house, erected mostly for a temporary purpose, the roof of which is flat and is covered in a very uncommon, simple, and ingenious manner.  Large, straight bamboos are cut of a length sufficient to lie across the house, and, being split exactly in two and the joints knocked out, a first layer of them is disposed in close order, with the inner or hollow sides up; after which a second layer, with the outer or convex sides up, is placed upon the others in such manner that each of the convex falls into the two contiguous concave pieces, covering their edges; the latter serving as gutters to carry off the water that falls upon the upper or convex layer.*

(Footnote.  I find that the original inhabitants of the Philippine Islands covered their buildings in the same manner.)