The saide houses within are full of earth, and walled round about with brickes and dirt in steade of lime, and without forme, from the top to the foote they make a couering for them with Sugar canes, and plaister it with lime all ouer, for otherwise they would bee spoyled, by the great aboundance of raine that falleth in those Countreys.

It was a secure hiding-place for such a fugitive as a Saxon king because he could not be pursued by an army; he himself with a few followers could move from steading to steading and enjoy a certain amount of state, but a pursuing army would have perished.

The place was so smiling and homelike under the westering sun that one looked to see a trim steading with the smoke of hearth fires ascending, and to hear the cheerful sounds of labour and of children's voices.