Yonder stands a spiry cathedral nearly five thousand feet in height,
nobly symmetrical, with sheer buttressed walls and arched doors and
windows, as richly finished and decorated with sculptures as the great
rock temples of India or Egypt. Beside it rises a huge castle with arched
gateway, turrets, watch-towers, ramparts, etc., and to right and left
palaces, obelisks, and pyramids fairly fill the gulf, all colossal and
all lavishly painted and carved. Here and there a flat-topped structure
may be seen, or one imperfectly domed; but the prevailing style is ornate
Gothic, with many hints of Egyptian and Indian.
Throughout this vast extent of wild architecture--nature's own capital
city--there seem to be no ordinary dwellings. All look like grand and
important public structures, except perhaps some of the lower pyramids,
broad-based and sharp-pointed, covered with down-flowing talus like
loosely set tents with hollow, sagging sides. The roofs often have
disintegrated rocks heaped and draggled over them, but in the main
the masonry is firm and laid in regular courses, as if done by square
and rule.
Nevertheless they are ever changing: their tops are now a dome, now a
flat table or a spire, as harder or softer strata are reached in their
slow degradation, while the sides, with all their fine moldings, are
being steadily undermined and eaten away.
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