MUD AS A BUILDING MATERIAL. 



769 



had been repeated by means of a stamp which had been pressed 

 or imprinted when wet, producing a raised pattern ; the impres- 

 sion left was so clean and perfect, it might have been gilt, and it 

 would have been quite equal to the work we have at home on 

 picture-frames. 



Mud was the exclusive building material of that part of the 

 world. The simple houses of the villages are formed of it ; the 

 defensive walls of the towns, which, owing to the Turkomans, 

 were an absolute necessity to every village, were constructed of 



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Fig. 5. The Mud Walls of Nishapur, Khoeassan. 



the same. The houses of the rich were also formed with it, and 

 it had been developed into a highly decorative style of archi- 

 tecture. 



One would not expect much durability from such walls, yet I 

 was informed that there are walls of sun-dried brick in Ispahan 

 which are over three hundred or four hundred years old. This 

 quality of durability will no doubt depend upon the character of 

 the soil. In the northern part of Persia, according to Mr. A. Finn, 

 of the consular service, the walls of the old city of Erig are still 

 standing, and they are said to have existed for twelve hundred 

 years. There still remains at Cacha, in Peru, a wall of adobes, or 

 sun-dried bricks part of the Temple of Viracocha, which was in 

 a ruined condition about three centuries ago, when Garcilasso 

 described it, and this wall is still standing to a height of forty 

 feet.* There are the remains of very old walls in Egypt. There 

 is a Devonshire saying regarding the " cob," or mud walls, of that 



* Squier's Peru, p. 407. 



vol. xli. 55 



