By far the finest and most typical example of the Kashmiri style is the temple of Marttand, situated about five miles east of Islamabad, the ancient capital of the valley. It is the architectural lion of Kashmir, and all tourists think it necessary to go into raptures about its beauty and magnificence, comparing it to Palmyra or Thebes, or other wonderful groups of ruins of the old world. Great part, however, of the admiration it excites is due to its situation. It stands well on an elevated plateau, from which a most extensive view is obtained, over a great part of the valley. No tree or house interferes with its solitary grandeur, and its ruins--shaken down apparently by an earthquake--lie scattered as they fell, and are unobscured by vegetation, nor are they vulgarised by any modern accretions. Add to this the mystery that hangs over their origin, and a Western impress on its details unusual in the East, but which calls back the memory of familiar forms and suggests memories that throw a veil of poetry over its history more than sufficient to excite admiration in the most prosaic spectators. When, however, we come to reduce its dimensions to scale (Woodcut No. 160), and to examine its pretensions to rank among the great examples of architectural art, the rhapsodies of which it has been the theme seem a little out of place. [Illustration: 160. Temple of Marttand. (From a drawing by General A. Cunningham.) Scale 100 feet to 1 inch.] The temple itself (Woodcut No. 161) is a very small building, being only 60 ft. in length by 38 ft. in width. The width of the façade, however, is eked out by two wings or adjuncts, which make it 60 ft. As General Cunningham estimates that its height, when complete, was 60 ft. also, it realises the problem the Jews so earnestly set themselves to solve--how to build a temple with the three dimensions equal, but yet should not be a cube. Small, however, as the Jewish temple was, it was more than twice as large as this one. At Jerusalem the temple was 100 cubits, or 150 ft. in length, breadth, and height.[309] At Marttand these dimensions were only 60 ft. But it is one of the points of interest in the Kashmiri temple that it reproduces in plan, at least, the Jewish temple more nearly than any other known building.