Having my watch in my pocket, I measured a spot of a yard long, about a foot high, and a foot and a half on the upper flat, to see how long he would be fetching down that piece; and he got it away in little above two hours. By this means I came to know how they made their houses; for I had neither seen any tool I thought proper, nor even iron itself, except my own, since I came into the country. Upon inquiry, I found that the scrapings of this stone, and a portion of common earth, mixed with a water they have, will cement like plaster; and they use it in the small ornamental work of their buildings. I then went farther into this house, where I saw one making the figure of a glumm by the same method; but it standing upright in the solid rock against the wall, the workman held his liquor in an open shell, and dipping such stuff as my bed was made of, bound up in short rolls, some larger, some less, into the liquor, he touched the figure, and then scraped till he had reduced it into a perfect piece. It is impossible to imagine how this work rids away; for in ten months' time after I saw it, this house was completed, having a great number of fine, large, and lofty rooms in it, exquisitely carved to all appearance. My wonder ceased as to the palace, when I saw how easily this work was done; but sure there is no other such room in the world as Begsurbeck's, that I described above. The palace, as I said before, taking up one quarter of the city, opens into four streets by four different arches; and before one of the sides, which I call the front, is a large triangle, formed by the entrance out of one of the cross streets, and the two ends of the front of the palace. Along the lower front of it, all the way runs a piazza of considerable height, supported by vast round columns, which seemed to bear up the whole front of the rock, over which was a gallery of equal length, with balustrades along it, supported with pillars of a yet finer make, and over that a pediment with divers figures, and other work, to the top of the rock, which being there quite even for its whole length, was enclosed with balustrades between pedestals all the way, on which stood the statues of their ancient kings, so large as to appear equal to the life. The other two sides of the triangle were dwellings for divers officers belonging to the palace. Under the middle arch of the piazza was the way into the palace, through a long, spacious arched passage, whose farther end opened into a large square; on each side of this passage were large staircases, if I may so call them, by which you ascend gradually, and without steps, into the upper apartments.