Their towns look like large encampments of nomad hordes, ready at a moment’s notice to take up their tents and run away. Though they have constructed a huge wall, which is 25 feet thick at the base, diminishing to 15 at the platform, provided at distances of 100 yards with towers about 40 feet square at the base, diminishing to 30 at the top, and about 37-48 feet in height; though they have carried this over the ridges of lofty hills (one of them 5,000 feet above the level of the sea), and led it through the deepest valleys, or upon arches over rivers--their architecture is still in its very infancy. It is a kind of toy-architecture. The walls of their houses may be pulled down, and the houses still remain standing. For architecture with the Chinese is in no way an organic total; it is not even a chemically-united composition; but a mechanically-joined something, without any ruling and connecting idea. Contrary to all rules of good architecture, they express in their constructions the principle of the separation and independence of the active elements of the building, instead of their union and harmony. It is variety without unity. Their walls are mere screens in bricks or wood, mere frameworks for tapestry. The wall with them does not support; it appears movable and totally distinct from the roof. The scaffolding which supports the horizontal, as also the vertical enclosures, belongs more to textile than to tectonic art The Turanian is still addicted to fascine work, like the pre-historic lake-dweller, or our contemporary aboriginal New Zealander. The divisions in the interior of the house are movable; either consisting of real carpets, lattice-work, wooden-jointed leaves, or boards, ornamented to imitate carpets or movable screens. Imitations of flowered woven-stuffs, lacquered panels with impossible perspectives, bamboo tress-work, with protruding knobs, carved and turned into gaping and grinning fantastic monsters, are also among the principal characteristics of Chinese architectural ornamentation. Chinese trellis-work has a fairy-like appearance. The patterns are infinitely varied, either closely fitting or perforated, dividing and enclosing spaces, surrounding terraces as railings, running up the staircases, or forming large borders between column and column. The trellis-work of the Chinese may be divided into three classes:-- 1. The bamboo _wicker_-work, a close imitation of textile fabrics; in fact, woven wood-work. 2. The _lattice_-work, a kind of transition or metamorphic work between trellis and cross-barred work. The patterns are of a grosser kind. 3. The _mixed_-work, a combination of the two classes. The first is generally used in ornamenting the interior of the basements of the houses. The natural bright yellow tint of the bamboo is either left, or it is lacquered in variegated colours to heighten the effect of the patterns.