394

ON THE A It ABLE LAND

stells already mentioned, (when those with straw are used),and the long drawn straw for thatch.

In laying on the thatch, the thatcher stands upon the slop-ing conical roof of the rick, as near as he can to the eaves,and lays on the thatch in handfuls, from sheaves of straw pla-ced within his reach. He thrusts the inner end of his hand-ful of thatch, gathered into a neck or wisp, into the butts ofthe sheaves, and spreads out the lower end like a fun, over-hanging the eaves. Beginning at the eaves, and covering asmuch of these as he can reach at arm’s length, he works up-wards, causing each successive handful to overlap that imme-diately below ; and he thus covers the roof in triangular por-tions, till he has gone round the whole backwards, that hemay avoid treading on his work. When he has reached thetop of all, he lays a considerable thickness of short straw uponthe crown, over which a straw-rope is carried perpendicular-ly, dividing the roof into two equal sections. He then coversthis toping of short straw with long thatch, drawn to a pointat the summit, and ties the upper ends of this with a smallstraw-rope into a peak, giving this last part the resemblanceof an umbrella.

With the aid of two assistants on the ground, while he bc-mains aloft on a ladder, so as to be able nearly to reach thetop of all with his hands, the thatcher now places a numberof straw-ropes, which obliquely embrace the coni'cal roof, tosecure the thatch. The middle of each rope is fixed, by meansof a small wisp of straw, to the perpendicularly transverse ropealready mentioned, and the ends of all the oblique ropes arefixed below by the assistants, either to the butts of the sheavesin the cylindrical body of the rick, or to a circular belt ropewhich firmly embraces the body below the eaves. If this istoo high for the assistants, each has a short ladder to enablehim to reach up. This series of ropes has a considerable ob-liquity.from above downwards, and they are placed at abouta foot or fifteen inches distant from each other. In case ofhurry, from the prospect of bad weather, this first scries of ob-