TREE HUTS IN NEW GUINEA.
tree-huts like those still used by certain aborigines of New Guinea, India, and Central Africa. To these huts they retreated at night, to be safe from wild beasts, and also at sudden attacks by superior enemies.
The cliff dwellings, abounding among the steep cañons of Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona were similar retreats. Here we find thousands of stone houses, many hidden at such places and so high above the rivers that they can hardly be detected from below. In the cañon of the Rio Mancos several cliff dwellings are 800 feet above the river. To locate them from below a telescope is needed. How it was possible for human beings to get to some of these places, is a mystery still unsolved.
Other dwellings stand on almost unscalable boulders, or they are placed within the fissures and shallow caverns of perpendicular walls. They can be reached only by descending from the upper rim of the cãnon by means of long ropes, or by climbing upwards from below by using hands as well as feet. If one succeeds in getting to these places, one finds them always provided with store rooms for food and water. Constant danger of hostile assaults must have compelled people to live in such difficult retreats, which could be prepared only at enormous expenditure of time and labor.
Another form of refuge were the lake-dwellings, which were erected far out in the lakes on platforms resting on heavy posts. Traces of such structures have been found in
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