MUD AS A BUILDING MATERIAL. 



7 6 3 



importance of mud in connection with building and architecture 

 first attracted my attention. I had to pass from Tehran eastward, 

 through Khorassan and into Afghan Turkestan. Along the whole 

 of this route mud is the building material. Some of the serais 

 that is, caravan serais for the accommodation of travelers are of 

 burned brick, but these are about the only exceptions. Not only 

 villages, but large towns, are built of mud or sun-dried brick. 

 The defensive walls are of the same material ; even such large 

 towns as Sabzawar, Nishapur, Meshed, and New Sarrakhs are for- 

 tified with walls of this kind. On realizing this almost exclusive 

 use of one building material, in one region, my mind naturally 

 recalled what I had seen in India, where, although stone and fire- 



jfr'fi^.j 





Fig. 1. The Meshed Gate, New Sarrakhs, on the Heri Kcd. 



burned brick are largely used, yet the villages are over very large 

 districts wholly constructed of mud. In Afghanistan it is the 

 same. The fort at Peshawer, which was Afghan territory up to 

 Runjit Singh's time, is a mud one. Jellalabad is surrounded by 

 a mud wall. From the Khyber Pass to Tehran the towns and 

 their defenses, as well as the villages, are almost identical in their 

 material as well as in their general appearance. 



These statements show that over a large geographical space in 

 the Eastern world the building material at the present day is al- 

 most exclusively mud. I have been thus far speaking of what I 

 have seen with my own eyes. To this may be added the practice 

 of other countries. I believe that it is the same over most of 

 Central Asia. It is now accepted that in Mesopotamia it was 

 largely employed ; and we know that in Egypt, from the earliest 

 times to the present day, it has been the principal means employed 

 in structural erections. It was largely used in Greece in ancient 

 times, and also in Spain. It was known in South America and all 

 along the Pacific coast, from Peru to San Francisco. The word 

 " dobies," for sun-dried bricks, is a familiar term this is derived 



