For generations they had held the land, and, though their
clothing was scanty and their customs odd, they possessed many of
the elements of character that are esteemed noble, and, had they
been left to themselves, they might have progressed--so people
who have studied into their character now believe--into a fairly
advanced stage of what is known as barbaric civilization.
They lived in long, low houses of bark and boughs, each house
large enough to accommodate, perhaps, from eighty to a hundred
persons--twenty families to a house. These "long houses" were,
therefore, much the same in purpose as are the tenement-houses of
to-day, save that the tenements of that far-off time were all on
the same floor and were open closets or stalls, about eight feet
wide, furnished with bunks built against the wall and spread with
deer-skin robes for comfort and covering. These "flats" or stalls
were arranged on either side of a broad, central passage-way, and
in this passage-way, at equal distances apart, fire pits were
constructed, the heat from which would warm the bodies and cook
the dinners of the occupants of the "long house," each fire
serving the purpose of four tenements or families.
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