328 PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

coast, with a long marine grass, which is found in quantities along the shores. Pples are laid over this thatch, tied together with birch Withes, to keep the whole securely down. A wooden frame-work, placed on a slight foundation of stone roughly raised a few feet above the ground, leads through the roof, which, with its sides closed up with clay and straw kneaded together, forms the chimney. A space large enough for a deor, and another for a window, is cut through the walls; and in the centre of the cot- tage, a square pit or cellar is dug, for the purpose of preserving potatoes or other vegetables during win- ter; over this pit, a floor of boards, or logs hewed flat on the upper side, is laid, and another over head, to form a sort of garret. When the door is hung, a window sash, with six or nine, or sometimes twelve panes of glass, is fixed, and one, two, or three truckle beds are put up: the habitation is then considered ready to receive the new settler and his family. Although such a dwelling has certainly nothing handsome, comfortable, or even attractive, unless it be its rudeness in appearance, yet it is by no means so miserable a lodging as the habitations of the poorer peasantry in Ireland, and in some parts of England and Scotland. In a few years, however, a much better house is built, with two or more rooms, by all steady industrious settlersfi‘

* The manner of building these habitations, and the mode of clearing and cultivating forest lands, may be considered equally applicable to all the other colonies.