OR CUTTACK. 337 



snost magnificent, monuments remaining- of its indigenous princes.* Many 

 of these works are to be found in different parts of the province, still in ex* 

 cellent state of preservation. The principal bridges which I have seen, are, 

 that between Simleah and Soro, of fourteen nalehs or channels : the Athareh 

 or eighteen naleh bridge, at Puri ; the Char naleh, in the same neighbour* 

 hood; the bridge at Delang, and another over the Dya, between Ivhurda and 

 Pipley. They are generally termed indifferently by foreigners, Mogul and 

 JMarhatta bridges, but the latter race during their unsettled and disturbed 

 government in Cuttack, certainly never constructed works of so useful and 

 durable a character, and besides the fact that the history of some of the 

 principal ones is well known, it is quite obviotis from a consideration of 

 their style and architectural ornaments, that they are of pure Hindu origin^ 

 and belong to an age ignorant of the use of the arch. A short description. 

 Qf the Athareh naleh bridge at Puri, will serve, to illustrate sufficiently this 

 part of the subject. It was built of a. ferruginous colored stone, probably 

 the iron clay, early in the fourleenth century, by Raja Jvabir Narsinh Deo, 

 the successor ot' Langora Narsinh Deo who completed the black Pagoda. 

 The Hindus, being ignorant how £o turn an arch, substituted in lieu of it the 

 method, often adverted to above, of laying horizontal tiers of stones on the 

 piers, the one projecting .slightly beyond the other in the manner of invert- 

 ed stairs, until they approach near enough at top, to sustain a key stone or 

 cross beam ; a feature so remarkable in Hindu architecture, that it seems 

 strange it should not have been hitherto particularly noticed, in any des- 

 cription of the antiquities of the country. The bridge has eighteen nalehs or 

 pasts;ig< j s for the water, each roofed in the way described. Its total length 

 is 2C0 feel, and height of the central passage eighteen feet, and its breadth 

 fourteen ditto ; of the smallest ones, at each extremity, thirteen and seven 

 respectively ; and the thickness of the piers, which have been judiciously 



* Mr. J. Gra^t in Lis Historical Analysis calls them, I know not wby the " wretched edifices of rustic 

 bridges^ 



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