[4] Huts and humpies made entirely from timber poles and large sheets of bark were easily erected, but these were often only temporary structures.[n.

As workmanship and tools improved, the slab structure became more permanent and sophisticated, eventually to become an icon of Colonial Australia, as evocative of time and place and humble beginnings as the thatched cottage of an English village or the log cabin of Early America.[9][n.

5] New Zealand's European settlers also had to adapt to local circumstances, building with whatever materials were available, and employing tools of poor quality, or even none at all.

There is, too, one great advantage [to] the immigrants hampering themselves at first with only slender households, for they may very soon find it to their interest to change their place of abode, in order to secure higher wages or engage in more congenial occupations...[11]The usual slab hut was built entirely from timber and bark.

[14] Settlers used a thatch of raupo,[15] toitoi, flax, fern, or totara bark; they erected tents from poles, saplings, canvas, and planks or split slabs; and made tree-fern huts or more permanent dwellings from clay, sods, wattle and daub, or stone.

The sheets of bark, having holes pierced through each in pairs, were then tied on the rafters with cords twisted of the inner rind of the kurrajong tree.

Indeed, all kinds of ironwork were equally inaccessible, and instead of hinges to tie doors or window shutters, those appurtenances were all made to revolve on wooden pivots in holes, bored a short distance into the

10] Mrs Gunn noted that 'Great sheets of bark... were packed a foot deep above the rafters to break the heat reflected from the iron roof, while beneath it the calico ceiling was tacked up.

Beyond the need for simple weatherproofing lay the desire for some aesthetic satisfaction, the wish to make one's dwelling place pleasing in appearance as well as comfortable to occupy.

[31] The exterior might then be painted, using mixes of materials as diverse as skim milk, quick-lime, lampblack and cement[32] or plastered over entirely.

More elaborate linings might cover the ceiling, and include sailcloth, hessian, calico, osnaburg, even wallpaper, cretonne or chintz.

[35][36][37] Mrs Aeneas Gunn describes making 'a huge mosquito-netted dining room, big enough to enclose the table and chairs, so as to ensure our meals in comfort... we hoped to find a paradise at mealtimes in comparison with the purgatory of the last few months.

'[38] Floors might consist of the original ground upon which the hut was erected, but various mixtures of sand, clay, cow-dung, and similar materials were laid to make a firmer, more level, or harder-wearing indoor surface.

[39] Termites mix their saliva, faeces and other substances to bind soil particles and form their mound: this type of flooring was known as 'ant bed'.

[40] All of these substances or mixes required regular maintenance, either by watering them to re-solidify the materials, or by spreading a new layer of mixture on top.

Few early settlers could afford the time, or possessed the capital, to build any dwelling more impressive than a slab hut: they had first to clear their land and get a crop planted or pasture fenced.

[50] Surgeon Peter Cunningham, advising potential settlers, described a similar method, and added: ... by this means a wooden house may be put up without having more than a dozen nails in its composition.

[53] Mrs Aeneas Gunn wrote of their Northern Territory homestead: The walls are erected by what is known as the drop-slab-panel system - upright panels formed of three-foot slabs cut from the outside slice of tree-trunks, and dropped horizontally, one above the other, between grooved posts - a simple arrangement, quickly run up and artistic in appearance - outside, a horizontally fluted surface, formed by the natural curves of the timber, and inside, flat, smooth walls.[n.

13] As in every third panel there was a door or a window, and as the horizontal slabs stopped within two feet of the ceiling, the building was exceedingly airy, and open on all sides.

[54]In this case, too, instead of grooving the posts, a channel might be made by nailing battens either side of the uprights, and the slabs fitted inside these.

In works of fiction, Henry Lawson's Drover's Wife lives in a slab hut; so does his Bush Undertaker, and much of A Day on a Selection is set in or around one.

A horizontal-slab shearing shed is the scene for Stragglers, and Lawson remarks of this makeshift structure, '... the whole business reminds us of the "cubby house" style of architecture of our childhood.

It was formed only of slabs and bark; yet the interstices of the walls being filled in with mud, and the whole of the interior whitewashed with pipeclay, of which there was abundance near, it produced no despicable effect by candlelight.'[n.

'[63] Mrs Aeneas Gunn writes of the satisfaction derived from building their slab homestead, 'beginning at the beginning of things': choosing, felling and sawing their own timber.

A large clearing opened out on the right, and a little way back from the road-line stood a slab hut—or wharé, as it is generally called in New Zealand... A building of but one apartment... constructed entirely of split timber, but neatly put together.

Its dimensions, however, were but in keeping with the supply of firewood outside; and it is only in the bush districts that such fireplaces are to be seen... Two small windows gave light to the apartment.

[71] William Swainson, John Barr Clark Hoyte, Frances Mary Hodges and Charles Blomfield, among others, produced paintings of slab wharves and other structures.[n.

[73] The 'backblocks' humour of Australian cartoonists of the Smith's Weekly school such as Alex Gurney, Percy Leason, Stan Cross and Eric Jolliffe often included slab huts as a backdrop to their gags.

[75] In journalism, illustrations of rural towns and farms in Australian newspapers and magazines of the Colonial era often show slab huts and homes.

The walls are kept square by a mezzanine floor, reached by an internal spiral staircase, making the house in effect a two-storey structure (Fig.