They calculate the year by the revolution of the sun and moon, but
use no subdivisions into weeks. They are well enough acquainted
with the motions of those two luminaries, and understand the nature
of eclipses; and this is the utmost progress of their astronomy.
In poetry, they must be allowed to excel all other mortals; wherein
the justness of their similes, and the minuteness as well as
exactness of their descriptions, are indeed inimitable. Their
verses abound very much in both of these, and usually contain
either some exalted notions of friendship and benevolence or the
praises of those who were victors in races and other bodily
exercises. Their buildings, although very rude and simple, are not
inconvenient, but well contrived to defend them from all injuries
of and heat. They have a kind of tree, which at forty years old
loosens in the root, and falls with the first storm: it grows very
straight, and being pointed like stakes with a sharp stone (for the
Houyhnhnms know not the use of iron), they stick them erect in the
ground, about ten inches asunder, and then weave in oat straw, or
sometimes wattles, between them.
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