224           VOYAGE DOWN THE AMOOR.
live, eat, sleep, smoke, talk, and drink, the entire household and their guests, in separate groups, around and upon the divan, according to their social relations, by night and by day. The dais is generally raised about two feet from the ground floor, and about six to seven feet deep, to the wall. It is their bed by night, their seat and table by day. Different kinds of mats or carpets are spread upon this divan, with a small round pillow for each person. These pillows, with the matting, and such covering as they have, consisting of light coverlets of cotton fabric, we saw carefully packed in a kind of clothes-press, against the wall, in one corner of the room, where they are arranged by the careful housewife in the morning, after the night's repose. The room is warmed by the hot air from the furnace, conveyed in wooden pipes along the perpendicular wall of the divan, going out at the side of the house, and ending in a high wooden chimney, sticking up in the yard adjacent to the house, which carries off the smoke.
After we had visited this village pretty freely, the white-ball came up, evidently chagrined at our success, for he found the people perfectly.content with our visit, while we remained unharmed and free from insult. The governor of Igoon had given as a reason why he placed officers near us, that it was to preserve order and decorum, and to see that we were respected by the people. But the fact was, that jealousy prompted it; either that the people should not become enamored with foreign fashions or faces, or that we might not observe the strength or weakness of their defences in a military point of view. After the white-ball came up, we still continued our