1 INTBODUCTION. f9
2 ■tone, fifly or asty feet at ft plioe oiled Rswieey which wis too
3 distant to visit: but we met willi no ruins of such antiquity as to
4 have any pietenaioos to a connection with Taxila. however, at
5 length discovered a remarkable building, which seemed at first" to
6 be a cupola, but when approaclied, was found to be a soHd striiutare,
7 on a low artificial mound. The height from the top aiibe momid to
8 the top of the building was about seventy &et, and the drcumferenee
9 was found to be one hundred and fifi^y paces. It was built of large
10 pieces of a hard stone common in the neighbourhood (which appeared
11 to bo composetl of petrified vegetable matter), mixed with smaller
12 pieces of a sandy stone. The greater part of the outijidc was cased
13 with the first mentioned stone, cut (^nite smooth, and the whole
14 seemed intended to liave been tluis tuf ril, (iu)ii£^b it had eulu r Ijocii
15 left iiicompiete, or the casing hatl tailen down. The plan ot the
16 whole could, however, be easily discovered. Some broad steps (now
17 mostly ruined) lead to the base of tiie pile : round the base is a
18 mouitiing, ou which are pilasters about four feet high, and six feet
19 asunder ; these have plain capnals, and support a cornice marked
20 with parallel lines and headings. The whole of this may be seven or
21 cigliL feet high, firom the uppermost, step to the top of the cornice.
22 The building then retires, leaving a ledge of a foot or two broad,
23 fiom whidi fises a pcrpen^cular wall about six feet higli : aboitt a
24 loot ab07e the ledge is a fiUet, fonned by stones projecting a veiy
25 little ttom the wall, and at the top of the wall is a more pio|ecting
26 Qornloe^ fipom which the sphere springs. Hie stones of the fiidng are
27 about three feet and a half k)n|^ and one and a half broad* and are
28 so pot in, that the ends only are exposed. The top is flat, and on it
29 thcf fenndations of walls are disooveiaUe, endbphig a qpaoe of eleven
30 paces long by five broad ; a third of this area is cut offby the feun-
31 dation of a cross waU. These was nothing at all Hindoo in the ap-
32 pearance of this building ; most of the party thoui^t it decidedly
33 Grecian. It was indeed as like Grecian architecture as any building
34 which Europeans, in remote parts of the country, could now construct
35 by the hands of unpractised native builders.