48 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
extensive area surrounded by a colonnade. Occasion- 
ally between the pillars, fakeers, pilgrims, and other 
temporary residents, for vagrancy is one of the great 
nuisances of this country, have thrown up partitions, 
and thus formed tolerably comfortable habitations. 
The gateway of the temple represented in the engrav- 
ing is a remarkably fine specimen of pyramidal 
architecture, in which Hindostan is so rich. The 
entrance to the main building is through the centre 
of the base, forming a large and lofty passage with a 
flat roof. Above this are five distinct stories ; so that 
I should think the building must exceed the height 
of a hundred feet. The exterior of this structure 
is very splendidly ornamented, but bears the marks 
of a much more modern date than the temple 
on the hill ; it is covered with the richest tracery, 
projecting in the boldest relief from the foundation 
to the summit, which is surmounted by five styles 
or cullices, supposed to have some cryptic reference 
to one of the principal Hindoo deities, too sacred 
for the profane understandings of the vulgar. The 
temple, which is several yards within the gateway, 
to which it is far inferior both in external gran- 
deur and variety of decoration, is a flat-roofed building 
supported upon an immense number of elegant co- 
lumns, which, though they all bear precisely the same 
character, are nevertheless every one differently em- 
bellished, showing at once the amazing fertility of 
invention of the persons who erected these stupendous 
edifices, their taste, their manual skill, and their perfect 
knowledge of architecture. The noblest monuments 
of ancient Greece and Rome must yield in splendour 
