Other Antiquarians and travelers have described similar dwellings, and even villages still in use in various parts of the world. Herodotus, who visited Thrace early in the 5th century, a.c., saw the natives about Lake Prasias living in a lacustrine village precisely like those of ancient Switzerland; modern Rumelian fishermen around Lake Prasias still build and inhabit similar dwellings. The same custom is followed by tribes dwelling on marshes, lake-borders or river-courses in cen tral Africa, the East Indies and Malaya, Australasia and in tropical America. The motives nowadays are not always, if ever, fear of enemies, but rather convenience, since such folks are usually dependent on boats for travel, or are engaged in fisheries of some sort, or find it needful to sleep above the wet jungle-soil, and out of the way of dangerous animals and annoying vermin. One of the most prominent examples is that which led European explorers to give the name Venezuela (a'L.ittle Venice') to the northern coast of South America. Around Lake Maracaibo the Indians dwelt in the rainy season in flimsy shelters perched on piles driven in the water, the shorter ones carrying the sills and floor, and the longer ones the roof-poles. They made platforms for stor ing property, and little islands as refuges for their meagre livestock But there is a well known example nearer home. The Irish, and
to a less extent the Scotch and English of old times, had lake dwellings that were made in the following way and were styled crannogs.
Great quantities of small stems, sticks and the like are collected and sunk by means of stones in the lake, so as to form an island. Very often advantage is taken of the existence of an island just level with the sur face of the water, which can be raised a foot or two above the surface with comparatively little labor. Sometimes a few upright piles are driven in on the top after the chief part of the island has been made in the manner described. When the island is thus raised to a sufficient height it is frequently strengthened by an enclosure of stakes driven into the bottom of the lake per pendicularly. A platform of thin stems of trees, either round or split into boards, is then made on top of the island, and this supports the structures that are built on them. The cran nogs of Ireland appear to have been rather used as strongholds than as dwellings. Consult Keller, 'Lake Dwellings of Swit zerland and Other Parts of Europe' (1878) ; Wood, Martin, 'Lake Dwellings of Ireland' (1886) ; Munro, R., 'Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings' (1882) ; 'Lake Dwellings of Europe' (1890), and general works on archzol ogy.