At Umtnapoora were spires, turrets, and lofty obelisks. The u• is an exact square, with public granaries and store-rooms, and a gilded temple at each angle, upward-4 of 100 feet high. In the centre of the front stands the royal palace, with a wide court in the front, beyond which is the council-hall, supported by eighty pillars, on eleven roods. The royal library is a brick building raised on a terrace, and covered with a roof of very compound structure ; it consists of one square room, with an enclosed veranda or gallery round it.—See Colonel Symes's Enthassy to Ara, 1795.
With regard to the present practice of 'Undo° architecture, we learn that in Benares, their holy city, situated on the north bank of the C;anges, 400 miles N. W. of Calcutta, the streets are so narrow as not to admit of two carriages to pass one another. The houses are built with large stones, :leen rately joined. Some of them are six stories high, with terraces on the summits ; a band or string-course, decorated with sculpture toltrably well executed. serves to mark exter nally the division of each story. The windows are very small. The houses on the opposite side of the streets some times communicate by galleries. The number of houses built of stone and brick are reckoned at 12,000; those with mud walls 16,000. In this city there is an observatory ofitum•nse macmitude, a great number of II indoo temples, and a spacious mosque, built by Aurungzebe, from the minarets of which, the whale city may be seen.
By the kindness of a gentleman, whose opportunities and disposition for accurate observation have qualified him to afibrd the most authentic information, we are enabled to give the following account of the modes pursued by the Iiindoos in the construction of their dwelling-houses : " The houses of the opulent are substantially built of stone and brick, with lime mortar, generally terraced with small bricks, about four inches square, and one inch in thickness ; the beams are laid about 12 feet apart, and the joints 10 inches. The masons begin to form the terrace at one angle of the building, sitting upon a plank, which is supported on the brickwork as they proceed, until they finish at the angle opposite to that at which they commenced. They have no planks upon the beams or joists to support the work below ; but as the middle of the terrace (generally about IS feet wide) is from five to six inches higher than the sides, an arch is thereby formed and supported by the surrounding walls, which are 20 inches in thickness, and have a parapet placed upon them, both for ornament and adding to the security. Over this brick arch
is laid a coat or layer of jelly or gravel, or broken bricks, about the size of a large pea, mixed with quick-lime and Jaggury water; this is beat down hard with small hand mallets. Over this first coat is laid a second, composed of rough lime-mortar, which is scored across. The third and last coat is a fine chunars ; and this, altogether, forms so strong and firm a body, that a whole terrace sometimes falls down entire and unbroken. Many houses are built with pointed roofs, covered with flat tiles, four inches square, and three-quarters of an inch in thickness ; others have a slight coat of lime, with pantiles, which are seldom above seven inches by four ; they are semicircular nearly. The houses of the middling class are usually built in a square, and covered with tiles, with a seat round the inside of the square, about three feet high, and three feet in width, protected by a veranda; it is here the inhabitants sit to receive their guests. There are no windows in the external walls, but to each house there is a small door, and frequently a window ; the latter placed as high as the veranda will admit. In the open square there is generally a well, with a water-course below the house, for domestic purposes. The houses of the poor are miserable : a few bamboos stuck in the ground. in :Lcircular form, are eolleeted, bent, and tied at the top, so as to repre sent an egg with the end eut oft They are seldom 10 feet in diameter, with a hole about three feet high to creep in at this is shut with a leaf, tied on a simple wicker frame. The towns are generally a long street, with others at right angles, but seldom built with much regularity : are large, some small ; some are thatched, ana others tiled. Those in the interior parts of the country are inferior to those near the sea-coast towns, where Europeans are settled." From the account of Colonel Symes's embassy to Ava, we learn, that in the Birman empire, in private houses, the use of brick and stone is prohibited, and they are there[ re all constructed of wood. They are raised from the ground by wooden posts or bamboos, according to the size of the building, and made tolerably convenient. The roofs are slightly covered, and at every door stands a long bamboo, with an iron hook at the end, to pull off the thatch, and another with an iron grating, to stifle the flame by pressure. Firemen constantly patrol the streets at night.