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built by the emperors in their pleasure gardens. The taste for this class of building at one period prevailed to such an extent that houses were constructed from 150 ft. to 200 ft. in height, flanked by towers extending to 300 ft. Though the emperors have, generally, abandoned these enormous buildings, they are still occasionally erected. Most houses of the country are so slightly built as to be incapable of bearing more than one story. Indeed, the necessity for making the most of an area by doubling and tripling its capacity, which exists in the capitals of Europe, does not operate in China.

101. The houses of the Chinese are uniform in their appearance.

Fig. 72.

We here annex the

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plan and elevation of one (figs. 72. and 73.); from which it will be seen
that a large portion of the area is occupied by courts, passages, and gar-
dens. Sir W. Chambers describes those of the merchants at Canton as
being, generally, a long rectangle on the plan, two stories high, and the
apartments divided on the ground floor by a wide passage, which extends
through the whole length. On the side towards the street the shops
are placed, beyond which a quadrangular open vestibule leads to the
private apartments, which are distributed on the right and left of the
passage. There is a salon, usually about 18 ft. or 20 ft. long, and 20 ft.
wide, open towards the vestibule, or with a screen of canework to protect
it from the sun and rain. At the back are doors extending from the
floor about half way to the ceiling; the superior part being of trellis
work, covered with painted gauze, which gives light to the bedroom.
The partition walls are not carried higher than the ground story, and
are lined with mats to the height of three feet, above which a painted
paper is used.
The pavement is of differently coloured stone, or marble
squares. The doors are generally rectangular, of wood, and varnished
or painted with figures. Sometimes the communication between apart-
ments is in the form of an entire circle, which some have compared to
the aperture of a bird-cage. The

windows are rectangular, and filled
in with framework in patterns of
squares, parallelograms, polygons, and
circles, variously inscribed in or in-
tersecting each other. The railwork
to the galleries is similarly orna-
mented. The compartments of the
windows are generally filled in with
a transparent oyster shell instead of
soft glass. The upper floor, which oc-
cupies the whole breadth of the

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GROUND PLAN.

Fig. 73. ELEVATION OF A CHINESE HOUSE.

house, is divided into several large apartments, which are, occasionally, by means of temporary partitions, converted into rooms for visitors, apart from the family. The sleeping rooms for the people connected with the business are over the shops. The roof stands on wooden columns; and its extremities, projecting beyond the walls, are usually decorated with the representation of a dragon.

102. In the system of carpentry practised by the Chinese, the columns and beams look more like the bars of a light cage than the supports and ties of a solid piece of framing, or like a collection of bamboos fastened to one another. The accompanying diagram (fig. 74.) will convey our meaning to the reader. Their columns vary in their forms and in their proportions from eight to twelve diameters in height, and are without capitals. They are generally of wood, standing on marble or stone bases, and are occasionally polygonal as well as circular. Some are placed on moulded bases.

Fig. 74. cut.MS AND
CRS-PIECE.

103. The palaces are constructed on nearly the same plan. Nothing, say the missionaries of Pekin, gives a more impressive idea of a palace and the greatness of its inhabitant, whether we consider its extent, symmetry, elevation, and uniformity, or whether we regard it for the splendour and magnificence of its parts, than the palace of the emperor at Pekin. The whole, they say, produced an effect upon them for which they were not prepared. It occupies an area of upwards of 3600 ft. from east to west, and above 3000 ft. from north to south, without including the three fore-courts. Mr. Barrow, in his Account of Lord Macartney s Embassy, describes it as a vast enclosure of a rectangular form, surrounded by double walls, having between them ranges of offices, covered by roofs sloping towards the interior. The included area is occupied by buildings not more than two stories high, and forming several quadrangular courts of various sizes, in the centres of which are buildings standing on granite platforms, 5 ft. or 6 ft. high. These are surrounded by columns of wood, which support a projecting roof turned up at the angles. One of these buildings, serving as a hall of audience, stands like the rest on a platform, and

its projecting roof is supported by a double row of wooden columns, the intervals between which, in each row, are filled with brickwork to the height of 4 ft.; the part above the wall being filled in with lattice work, covered with transparent paper. The courts are intersected by canals spanned by several marble bridges. The gateways of the quadrangles are adorned with marble columns on pedestals, decorated with dragons. The courts contain sculptured lions 7 ft. or 8 ft. high; and at the angles of the building, surrounding each area, are square towers, two stories high, crowned with galleries. The reader will find a delineation of this extraordinary building in Cousin's work, Du Genie de L'Architecture, 4to, Paris, 1822, pl. 26. The peristylia of the interior buildings of the palace are built upon a platform of white marble, above which they are raised but a few steps; but this platform is reached by three flights of marble steps, decorated with vases and other

ornaments.

104. It is said that there are 10,000 miao, or idol temples in Pekin and its environs. Some of these are of considerable size, others are more distinguished for their beauty; there is, however, no sufficient account of them, and we shall therefore proceed to those of Canton, which have been described by Chambers. He says that in this city there are a great number of temples, to which Europeans usually apply the name of pagoda. Some of these are sinall, and consist of a single chamber; others stand in a court surrounded by corridors, at the extremity of which the ting, or idols, are placed. The most extensive of these pagodas is at Ho-nang, in the southern suburb of Conan. Its interior area is of the length of 590 ft., its width 250 ft. This area is surrounded by cells for 200 bonzes, having no light but what is obtained from the doors. The entrance to the quadrangle is by a vestibule in the middle of one of the short sides; and at the angles are buildings 30 ft. square, in which the principal bonzes reside. In the middle of each of the long sides is a rectangular area, surrounded by cells, one containing the kitchens and refectories, and the other, hospitals for animals, and a burying ground. The great quadrangle contains three pagodas or pavilions, each 33 ft. square on the plan. They consist each of two stories, the lowest whereof is surrounded by a peristyle of twenty-four columns. The basement to each is 6 ft. high, to which there is a flight of steps on each side, and the three basements are connected by a broad wall for the purpose of communication between them, with steps descending into the court. The roofs of the peristylia are concave on the exterior; and the angles, which are curved upwards, are decorated with animals. The sides of the upper story are formed with wooden posts, filled in with open framework. Round the foot on the exterior is a balcony with a rail in front. The roof resembles that of the peristyle, and has its angles similarly ornamented. The buildings are all covered with green varnished tiles.

105. The Chinese towers, which also Europeans call pagodas, are very common in the country. The most celebrated, whereof a diagram is presented here (fig. 75.), is thus

described by P. Le Comte. Its form on the plan is octagonal, and 40 ft. in diameter; so that each side is full 16 ft. It is surrounded by a wall at a distance of 15 ft., bearing, at a moderate height, a roof covered with varnished tiles, which seems to rise out of the body of the tower, forming a gallery below. The tower consists of nine stories, each ornamented with a cornice of 3 ft. at the level of the windows, and each with a roof similar to that of the gallery, except that they do not project so Fig. 75. much, not being supported by a second wall. They grow smaller as the stories rise. The wall of the ground story is 12 ft. thick, and 8 ft. high, and is cased with porcelain, whose lustre the rain and dust have much injured in the course of three centuries. The staircase within is small and inconvenient, the risers being extremely high. Each floor is formed by transverse beams, covered with planks forming a chamber, whose ceiling is decorated with painting. The walls are hollowed for numberless niches, containing idols in bas-relief. The whole work is gilt, and seems of marble or wrought stone; but the author thinks it of brick, which the Chinese are extremely skilful in moulding with ornaments thereon. The first story is the highest, but the rest are equal in height. I counted," says M. Le Comte, "190 steps, of ten full inches each, which make 158 ft. If to this we add the height of the basement, and that of the ninth story, wherein there are no steps, and the covering, we shall find that the whole exceeds a height of 200 ft. The roof is not the least of the beauties which this tower boasts. It consists of a thick mast, whose foot stands on the eighth floor, and rises thirty feet from

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CHINESE TOWER, OR PAGODA.

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the outside of the building. It appears enveloped in a large spiral band of iron, clear by several feet from the pole, on whose apex is a gilt globe of extraordinary dimensions.

106. The word tower has been vaguely applied to all these buildings; but in China there are differences in their application, which are classed under three heads :-1. Tat, or platforms for astronomical or meteorological observations, or for enjoying the air and landscape. 2. Hou, such as that just described in detail, being edifices of several stories, isolated and circular, square and polygonal on the plan, built of different materials in different places. S. Ta, which are sepulchral towers; these are usually massive, of strange but simple forms. 107. The Pay-lou, or triumphal arches of the Chinese, are to be found in every city. They are erected to celebrate particular events. Those at Ning-po are with a central and two smaller side openings, and are ornamented with polygonal stone columns, supporting an entablature of three or four fascia. These are usually without mouldings, the last but one excepted, which is a species of frieze filled with inscriptions. They are crowned with roofs of the usual form, having broad projections, whose angles are turned upwards. The apertures are sometimes square, and sometimes circular headed.

108. China abounds in bridges; but Du Halde and the missionaries have made more of them in their accounts than they appear to deserve. What they have described as a bridge of ninety-one arches between Soo-chow and Hâng-chow, was passed by Lord Macartney, and found to be nothing more than a long causeway. Its highest arch, however, was supposed to be between 20 ft, and 30 it. high; the length about half a mile. Sir George Staunton (vol. ii. p. 177.) observed a bridge which appeared to be skilfully constructed. They were acquainted with the use of the arch composed of wedge-shaped voussoirs, perhaps before it was known in Europe. Their great wall is a remarkable monument. In most parts it consists of an earthen mound retained on each side by walls of brick and masonry, with a terraced plat form and a parapet of bricks. Its height is 20 ft. including a parapet of 5 ft.

The

thickness at the base is 25 ft, and it diminishes to 15 ft. at the platform. Towers, at intervals of about 200 paces, are 40 ft. square at the base, and 30 ft. at the top; their height is about 37 ft.; some of them, however, are 48 ft. high, and consist of two stories. (See fig. 76.) In other parts the wall is little better than an earthen parapet with a ditch; in some places only rude stones heaped up. It extends a length of 1500 miles, and is conducted over mountains, valleys, and rivers. Mr. W. Simpson, in the Papers of the Inst. of Brit. Architects, 1873-74. carefully describes the important series of the Ming tombs, dating 1425-1629. Many works have been published of late on Chinese and Japanese architecture and ornament.

Fig. 76.

GREAT WALL OF CHINA.

1

SECT. IX.

MEXICAN ARCHITECTURE.

109. The architecture of the people who had possession of America before its discovery by Columbus has a considerable claim upon our attention. When a people appears to have had no means of modelling their ideas through study of the existing monuments of older nations, nor of preserving any traces of the style of building practised by the race from which they originated, their works may be expected to possess some novelty in the mode of combination or in the nature of the objects combined; and, in this point of view, American architecture is not without interest. It is, moreover, instructive in pointing out the bent of the human mind when unbiassed by example in the art.

110. North America was found by the Spaniards advanced in agriculture and civilisation, and more especially so in the valleys of Mexico and Oaxaca. These provinces seem to have been traversed by different migratory tribes, who left behind them traces of cultivation. It is not cur intention here to discuss the mode of the original peopling of America; but we must, in passing, observe that the vicinity of the continents of Asia and America is such as to induce us to remind the reader that one of the swarms, which we mentioned in the section on Druidical and Celtic Architecture, might have moved in a direction which ultimately brought them to that which, in modern times, has received the name of the New World. The Toultecs appeared in 648, making roads, building cities, and constructing great pyramids, which are yet admired. They knew the use of hieroglyphical paintings,

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founded metals, and were able to cut the hardest stone. (Humboldt, New Spain.) The Aztecs appeared in 1196, and seem to have had a similar origin and language. Their works, though they attest the infancy of art, bear a striking resemblance to several monuments of the most civilised people. The rigid adherence of the people to the forms, opinions, and customs which habit had rendered familiar to them, is common to all nations under a religious and military despotism.

111. The edifices erected by the Mexicans for religious purposes were solid masses of earth of a pyramidal shape, partly faced with stone. They were called Teocullis (Houses of God). That of ancient Mexico, 318 ft. at the base and 121 ft. in height, consisted of five stories; and, when seen at a distance, so truncated was the pyramid that the monument appeared an enormous cube, with small altars covered by wooden cupolas on the top. The place where these cupolas terminated was elevated 177 ft. above the base of the

Fig. 77.

stones.

PYRAMIDS OF TEOTIHUACAN.

edifice or the pavement of the enclosure. Hence we may observe that the Teocalli was very similar in form to the ancient monument of Babylon, called the Mausoleum of Belus. The pyramids of Teotihuacan (fig. 77.), which still remain in the Mexican Valley, have their faces within 52 minutes of a degree of the cardinal points of the compass. Their interior is clay, mixed with small porous amygdaloid. Traces are

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This kernel is covered with a thick wall of perceived of a bed of lime, which externally covers the stone.

112. The great pyramid of Cholula (fig. 78.), the largest and most sacred temple in

Mexico, appears, at a distance, like a natural conical hill, wooded, and crowned with a small church; on approaching it, its pyramidal form becomes distinct, as well as the four stories whereof it consists, though they are covered with vegetation. Humboldt compares it to a square whose base is four times that of the Place Vendome at Paris covered with bricks to a height twice that of the Louvre. The height of it is 177 ft.. and the length of a side of the base 1423 ft.. There is a flight of 120 steps to the platform. Subjoined is a comparative statement of the Egyptian and Mexican pyramids :

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F g. 78.

GREAT PYRAMID OF CHOLULA.

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The Cholula pyramid is constructed with unburnt bricks and clay, in alternate layers. As in other Teocallis, there are cavities of considerable size, intended for sepulchres. In cutting through one side of it to form the present road from Puebla to Mexico, a square chamber was discovered, built of stones, and supported by beams of cypress wood. Two skeletons were found in it and a number of curiously painted and varnished vases. Humboldt, on an examination of the ruins, observed an arrangement of the bricks for the purpose of diminishing the pressure on the roof, by the sailing over of the bricks horizontally. The area on the top contains 3500 square yards, and was occupied by the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, the God of Air, who has yielded his place to the Virgin. By the way, we may here mention that tumuli are found in Virginia, Canada, and Peru, in which there are galleries built of stone communicating with each other by shafts; but these are not surmounted by temples.

113. In the northern part of the inter dancy of Vera Cruz, west from the mouth of the Rio Tecolutla, two leagues distant from the great Indian village of Papantla, we meet with a pyramidal edifice of great antiquity. The pyramid of Papantla remained unknown to the first conquerors. It is seated in the middle of a thick forest, and was only discovered by some hunters about the year 1816. It is constructed of immense blocks of stone laid in mortar; but is not so remarkable for its size as for its form and the perfection of its finish, being only 80 ft. square at the base, and not quite 60 ft. high. A flight of fifty-seven

steps leads to the truncated pyramid. Like all the Mexican te callis, it is composed of stages, six whereof are still distinguishable, and a seventh appears to be concealed by the vegetation with which its sides are covered. The facing of the stories is ornamented with hieroglyphics, in which serpents and crocodiles, carved in relievo, are discernible. Each story contains a great number of square niches symmetrically distributed. In the first story twenty-four are on each side; in the second, twenty; and in the third, sixteen. The number of these niches in the body of the pyramid is 366, and there are twelve in the stairs towards the east.

114. The military intrenchment of Xochiculco, near Tetlama, two leagues south-west of Cuernavaca, is another remarkable ancient monument. It is an insulated hill, 370 ft. high, surrounded with ditches or trenches, and divided by the hand of man into five terraces covered with masonry. The whole has the appearance of a truncated pyramid, whereof the four faces are in the cardinal points of the compass. The masonry is of porphyry, very regularly cut, and adorned with hieroglyphics; among which are to be seen a crocodile spouting up water, and men sitting cross-legged after the Asiatic fashion. On the platform, which is very large, is a small square edifice, which was most probably a temple.

115. Though the province of Oaxaca contains no monuments of ancient Aztec architecture, which astonish by their colossal dimensions, like the houses of the gods of Cholula, Papantla, and Teotihuacan, it possesses the ruins of edifices remarkable for their symmetry and the elegance of their ornaments. The antiquity of them is unknown. In the district of Oaxaca, south of Mexico, stands the palace of Mitla, contracted from Miguitlan, signifying, in Aztec, the place of woe. By the Tzapotec Indians the ruins are called leobu, or haira burial, or tomb), alluding to the excavations found beneath the walls. It is conjectured to have been a palace constructed over the tombs of the kings, for retirement, on the death of a relation. The tombs of Mitla are three edifices, placed symmetrically in a very romantic situation. That in the best preservation, and, at the same time, the principal one, is nearly 130 ft. long. A staircase, formed in a pit, leads to a subterranean apartment, 88 ft. in length, and 26 ft. in width. This, as well as the exterior part of the edifice, is decorated with fret, and other ornaments of similar character (fig. 79.). But the most singular

URNAMENTS AT THE PALACE OF MITLA.

The

feature in these ruins, as compared with other Mexican architecture, was the discovery of six porphyry columns, placed for the support of a ceiling, in the midst of a vast hall. They are almost the only ones which have been found in the new continent, and exhibit strong marks of the infancy of the art, having neither base nor capital. The upper part slightly diminishes. Their total height is 19 ft., in single blocks of porphyry. The ceiling under which they were placed was formed by beams of Savine wood, and three of them are still in good preservation. roof is of very large slabs. The number of separate buildings was originally five, and they were disposed with great regularity. The gate, whereof some vestiges are still discernible, led to a court 150 ft. square, which, from the rubbish and remains of subterranean apartments, it is supposed was surrounded by four oblong edifices. That on the right is tolerably preserved, the remains of two columns being still in existence. The principal building had a terrace, raised between three and four feet above the level of the court, and serving as a base to the walls it surrounds. In the wall is a niche, with pillars, four or five feet above the level of the floor. The stone lintel, over the principal door of the hall, is in a single block, 12 ft. long and 3 ft. deep. The excavation is reached by a very wide staircase, and is in the form of a cross, supported by columns. The two portions of it, which intersect each other at right angles, are each 82 ft. long by 25 ft wide. The inner court is surrounded by three small apartments, having no communication with the fourth, which is behind the niche. The interiors of the apartments are decorated with paintings of weapons, sacrifices, and trophies. Of windows there are no traces. Humboldt was struck with the resemblance of some of the ornaments to those on the Etruscan vases of Lower Italy. In the neighbourhood of these ruins are the remains of a large pyramid, and other buildings.

116. In the intendency of Sonora, which lies north-west of the city of Mexico, and in the Gulf of California, on the banks of the Rio Gila, are some remarkable ruins, known by the name of the Casa Grande. They stand in the middle of the vestiges of an ancient Aztec city. The sides are in the direction of the four cardinal points, and are 445 from north

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