On going into the basement we looked clean up through the unbearded timbers to the roof; where rays of light, glimmering through many a chink, illuminated the cobwebs which swung all round.
The whole interior was dark and close.

Burrowing among some old mats in one corner, like a parcel of gipsies in a ruin, were a few vagabond natives.

They had their dwelling here.
Curious to know who on earth could have been thus trying to improve the value of real estate in Partoowye, we made inquiries; and learned that some years previous the block had been thrown up by a veritable Yankee (one might have known that), a house-carpenter by trade, and a bold, enterprising fellow by nature.
Put ashore from his ship, sick, he first went to work and got well; then sallied out with chisel and plane, and made himself generally useful.

A sober, steady man, it seems, he at last obtained the confidence of several chiefs, and soon filled them with all sorts of ideas concerning the alarming want of public spirit in the people of Imeeo.

More especially did he dwell upon the humiliating fact of their living in paltry huts of bamboo, when magnificent palaces of boards might so easily be mortised together.
In the end, these representations so far prevailed with one old chief that the carpenter was engaged to build a batch of these wonderful palaces.