These are like huge _phantasms_ of carved stone, rising into the sky. Huge walls, buttresses, turrets, immense clusters of columns, vaulted and lofty arches, long aisles, lighted by strangely-tinted windows, carved masses of stone in prodigious strength, leaping, flying upwards, upwards, in grand confusion, and yet upon a strange, wild plan!--giving expression to an imagination only known to these dark and strong Barbarians. Externally, on all sides these Temples are monstrous idols in stone, stuck most curiously upon corners, high up in niches, on turrets and battlemented [trit-ti-sy] walls, over the sculptured, grand portals, everywhere--chiefly _diabolic_, exceeding all the dreams of a mad and dreadful frenzy, yet borrowed from the Superstition and illustrating it! Others surmounting these dreadful things, _angelic_ and serene--as if, after all, the human instinct spurned all the low and horrible intimations of things too foul for expression, and yet so frightfully _attempted_, in ghastly and grinning stone! The Roman-Greek types knew nothing of such--how clear and beautiful these stood out, cheerful and _clean_, in the pure sky! As art found this sort of expression in the structures devoted to the Superstition, so in the buildings for the chiefs of tribes the same spirit directed, though modified by the object. In these art found pleasure, and the barbaric mind delight, to pile up lofty Castles of huge stone--dark, menacing--where all was for strength and to symbolise _Force_, and nothing for refinement, nor even comfort. These great structures are now, for the most part, crumbling away; not from change of barbaric spirit in the love of _Force_, but from the uselessness of the Gothic forms in the presence of big cannons. The Roman Architecture, somewhat altered, is generally revived in buildings of importance. Yet the Priests build much as before--dropping off, however, the more hideous of the grinning idols. In this unconsciously giving a sign of the decay of the Idolatry itself. For when all its _horrors_ shall have disappeared, the morality and the simple worship of the Lord of Heaven may remain. The improving condition has improved dwellings, particularly of the Higher Castes. The poor still grovel in huts and hovels, often too offensive for the healthy growth of anything but pigs. Among the Low-Castes, in great towns, the filth and stench are quite insupportable. In ships the English Barbarians pride themselves to be foremost. Upon this subject we may fairly give an opinion. There are others quite equal, and those of the _Starry Flag_ often superior.