It had a certain seclusion, having an enclosure of its own, and that enclosure communicated also with Lakamba's private courtyard at the back of his residence--a place set apart for the female household of the chief.

The only communication with the river was through the great front courtyard always full of armed men and watchful eyes.

Behind the whole group of buildings there stretched the level ground of rice-clearings, which in their turn were closed in by the wall of untouched forests with undergrowth so thick and tangled that nothing but a bullet--and that fired at pretty close range--could penetrate any distance there.
Babalatchi slipped quietly through the little gate and, closing it, tied up carefully the rattan fastenings.

Before the house there was a square space of ground, beaten hard into the level smoothness of asphalte.

A big buttressed tree, a giant left there on purpose during the process of clearing the land, roofed in the clear space with a high canopy of gnarled boughs and thick, sombre leaves.