hese majestic rock
structures.
Though mere residual masses of the plateau, they are dowered with the
grandeur and repose of mountains, together with the finely chiseled
carving and modeling of man's temples and palaces, and often, to a
considerable extent, with their symmetry. Some, closely observed, look
like ruins; but even these stand plumb and true, and show architectural
forms loaded with lines strictly regular and decorative, and all are
arrayed in colors that storms and time seem only to brighten. They
are not placed in regular rows in line with the river, but "a' through
ither," as the Scotch say, in lavish, exuberant crowds, as if nature
in wildest extravagance held her bravest structures as common as
gravel-piles. 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. But no essential change in
style or color is thus effected. From century to century they stand
the same. What seems confusion among the rough earthquake-shaken crags
nearest one comes to order as soon as the main plan of the various
structures appears. Every building, however complicated and laden with
ornamental lines, is at one with itself and every one
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