HOUSE SHORTAGE

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6410, 3 November 1923, Page 2

HOUSE SHORTAGE

CAyE-DWELLERS IN SPAIN Two travellers “with a donkey” in Southern Spain, who tell of their adventures in “Blackwood,” found that the larger part of the population of one village, Puerto Lumbreras, consisted of cave-dwellers. A mound on a hill-side, from which came smoke, was found to hold a chimney. Then it was noticed that there were many others. Hills were honeycombed with residential earth caves, forming human warrens. -The chimneys of one earth-grubbed “house” projected in front of the doorstep of the house above,(and from the top of the hill three or four chimneys lifted themselves out of the green grass, which donkeys were nibbling. , “And good houses, too,” said a villager, “warm in winter, cool in summer. No draughts, and no roof to repair.” One earth house visited had four good rooms, with the walls squared and painted. The general appearance of the interior was like that of an ordinary cottage.