Essay on the Architecture of the Hindus c4.s3.79

c4.s3.79

The next chapter professes to describe *nagaras* or cities; but as it contains nothing farther than an enumeration of several sorts of cities and the various titles of particular princes who are qualified to reside in them, I shall omit it altogether. In order, however, that lofty towers stored with fire-arms and adorned with banners. It was constantly filled with female stage players; it was beautiful with gardens and groves of mango-trees, and enclosed with high walls. It was surrounded by impassable ditches, and secured by fortifications difficult of assault by foreign kings; it was full of horses, elephants, cattle, camels, and mules. It was ornamented with palaces of exquisite workmanship, lofty as mountains, and enriched with jewels, abounding with beautiful houses consisting of several stories, and it shone like *Indra’s* heaven. It was crowded with tributary princes, purified with sacrificial rites, and filled with merchants of foreign countries. Its aspect had an enchanting effect; and the whole city was diversified with various colours, and decorated with regular avenues of sweet-scented trees. It was full of precious stones, and resplendent with stately edifices and beautiful apartments. It was filled with buildings erected close to one another, and without intermediate voids, and situated on a smooth level ground. It abounded in delicious rice, and water sweet as the juice of sugar-cane. It incessantly echoed with the sounds of kettle-drums, tabors, cymbals, and lutes; this city truly surpassed any that was ever beheld on earth. The houses which it contained resembled the celestial mansions which the *Sidd’hás* obtain through the virtue of their austerity.”