YAPAHOO.
Part II.
I have described the palace as being built upon the sloping ground, at the base of the wall of rock which rises many hundred feet above the surrounding plain. The foundations were consequently of the most substantial description, and the masonry raised upon them very massive; but nothing can exceed the regularity of the courses of cut stone, and the perfect fitting and bonding of each block. Both the terrace which projects in advance of the main building, and the main building itself, are ornamented with carved stone mouldings, below which are groups of figures in bold relief, resting on a lower moulding, designed to represent the up-turned leaves of the lotus. The figures are excellent, and in great variety of attitude. They represent nâtch girls, not oppressed with clothing, who are dancing with great spirit to the energetic music of tom-tom beaters and flageolet players, whose whole souls are in their work. The intense gravity of their faces is admirable; while the whole scene is so well "told," that you can almost fancy you can see their heads nodding in time to their music, and hear the castanets in the girls' hands. The overhanging moulding has protected these figures from the weather, and the details are perfect. The ornaments of the female figures and the expression of their faces are as though the sculptor had but just completed his work.
The doorway opens upon the terrace, and it is impossible not to be struck with its very graceful proportions. It is composed of three huge blocks of stone. The door-posts, or jambs—each a single stone—measure eleven feet six inches, exclusive of foundations, and are in girth one foot six by one foot four. The lintel, or traverse, is a single stone eight feet six inches long, but of greater bulk than the jambs. They are beautifully fluted, and the carving is as sharp as when the mason laid his chisel down. On either side are columns, whose capitals represent the lotus flower depressed. These are sadly out of their perpendicular, and, if indeed they have not already fallen, I fear they soon will leave the doorway
Entrance Doorway.
standing by itself, for they are built, and not, as most of the columns are, hewn out of a single block.
Near the door lies a fallen pillar of exceeding beauty—a monolith—which measures ten feet in length and two feet square, and is in excellent condition.
The huge trees, which have overthrown so much, have spared two of the walls of the vestibule on the left hand as you enter the doorway; but to judge from the displacement of the stones, it is evident that they must soon share the fate of the corresponding wing on the right, which has quite fallen away. But one of the windows which lighted the hall, as I have before said, remains quite perfect. It is so beautiful that it deserves a minute description.
It consists of one slab of stone, measuring four feet seven inches by three feet three, and seven inches thick. This thickness, however, is only preserved along the mouldings at its outer edges. Within the mouldings it has been reduced to an uniform thickness of three inches.
The name given to it by the natives exactly describes it, "Siwoomædurukawooloowa," "the perforated palace window." The surface of the slab of stone has been perforated into forty-five rings or circles, which admitted the light into the entrance-hall, somewhat in the fashion of the tracery work at the Tâj at Agra.