happens that the budgerow cannot come close to the fhores where he might wish to land. Thefe boats fail more expeditiously than the budgerows; but the paunchways are nearly of the fame general construction, with this difference, that the greatest breadth is fomewhat farther aft, and the fterns lower the pulwahs are a broad boat, and not fo sharp forward or aft as the other two. The English gentlemen have made great improvements on the budgerow in Bengal, by introducing a broad flat floor, fquare fterns, and broad bows. Thefe boats are much fafer, fail near, and keep their wind, and there is no danger attending their taking the ground; they are, befides, calculated for carrying a greater quantity of fail. Another boat of this country, which is very curiously conftructed, is called a Moor-punky; thefe are very long and narrow, fometimes extending to upwards of an hundred feet in length, and not more than eight in breadth; they are always paddled, fometimes by forty men, and are steered by a large paddle from the ftern, which rifes either in the shape of a peacock, a fnake, or fome other animal. The perfons employed to paddle are directed by a man who ftands up, and fometimes he makes use of a branch ́of a plant to direct their motions. In one part of the stern is a canopy fupported by pillars, in which are feated the owner and his friends, who partake together of the refreshing breezes of the evening. These boats are very expenfive, owing to the beautiful decorations of painted and gilt ornaments, which are highly varnished, and exhibit a very confiderable degree of taste. It was curious to me to obferve the perfect fimilarity in manners between the inhabitants of this country and the people of Otaheite in these water excurfions. The pleasure boats of the South Sea islanders are, in many inftances, fimilar to thefe working in an ocean, they found the neceffity of applying an out-rigger, or of lashing two veffels together, to prevent overfetting. Like the boats I am speaking of, they are worked by paddles, and are alfo directed by a man holding a branch, who, in common with the perfon in the Moor-punky, ufes much gefticulation, and tells his ftory to excite either laughter or exertion. My former paffage down the river to Calcutta was too rapid to allow of more obfervation than what related to the ge-neral appearance of the villages and towns on its banks. The stream is ufually calculated to run at the rate of five miles an hour; but the rapidity of the flood, during the rainy feafon, is increased, and round fome of the points in the river it is very great. Should it be calm weather when the flood is thus impetuous, the boatmen endure much fatigue in towing round these points against the ftream, and particularly fo where the banks are very high; and fome of them in the great river are equal to the top of the maft of a common budgerow. DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF BENARES. FROM THE SAME. THE HE city of Benares being the the capital of a large diftrict, and particularly marked as the feat of the Bramin learning, it cannot but be confidered as an object of particular curiofity, more efpecially, fince the fame manners and customs pre vail amongst these people at this day as at the remoteft period that can be traced in history: and in no instances of religious or civil life have they admitted of any innovations from foreigners. According to univerfal report, this is one of the most ancient Hindoo cities; and if the accounts of their own antiquity may be depended upon, it is, perhaps, the oldeft in the world. Major Rennell however, entertains a different opinion on this subject, from its not being mentioned by the Syrian ambaffadors foon after the time of Alexander, and from its being unnoticed by Pliny; and I have too great a deference for fuch an authority, to be at all inclined to difpute it, what ever may be the claims to antiquity which are preferred in favour of this city. It certainly is curious, and highly entertaining to an inquifitive mind, to affociate with a people whofe manners are more than three thousand years old; and to obferve in them that attention and polished behaviour which ufually marks the most highly civilized state of fociety. ter from carrying away the banks at the feafon of the periodical rains, and for fome time after, when the river is high, and the current ftrong. The most confiderable of these embankments is called Gelfi Gaut; the fplendor and elegance of which as a building I was induced to examine, but found, upon afcending the large flight of fteps from the river, nothing behind this beautiful fascade but the natural bank, and on the top a planted garden. In the centre of the building, over the river is a kind of turret, raised and covered, for the purpose of enjoying the freshness of the evening air; and at the extreme angles, two pavilions crowned with domes, which have the fame deftination. Moft of thefe buildings have been erected by the charitable contributions of the wealthy, for the benefit of the public. The distance of Benares from Calcutta, by the nearest road, according to Major Rennell, is 460 miles; by water, that distance is greatly increased. This city anciently bore the name of Kafi, but at what period it received its prefent name the page of history is filent. It is built on the north fide of the river, which is here very broad, and the banks of which are very high; from the water its appearance is extremely beautiful; the great variety of the buildings ftrikes the eye, and the whole view is much improved by innumerable flights of ftone fteps, which are either entrances into the feveral temples, or to the houses. Several Hindoo temples greatly embellish the banks of the river, and are all afcended to by Gauts, or flights of steps. Many other public and private buildings poffefs alfo confiderable magnificence. Many buildings on the banks of the river, which engage the attention, and invite to further obfervation, prove, on a more minute inveftigation, to be only embankments, to prevent the overflowing of the wa Nearly in the centre of the city is a confiderable Mahomedan mofque, with two minarets; the height from the water to the top of the minarets is 232 feet. This building was raised by that most intolerant and ambitious of human beings, the Emperor Aurungzebe, who deftroyed a magnificent temple of the Hindoos on this spot, and built the present mosque, of the fame extent and height as the building he destroyed. The streets in the city are narrow, and not kept in fuch good order as I expected, from fome Hindoo villages I had before feen. The houses are very high; I obferved fome in which I counted five ftories, each inhabited by different families. The more wealthy Hindoos, however, live in detached houfes, with open courts, furrounded by a wall. The heat, in this place, is confidered as very great in the hot months, not only from its natural fituation, but from the houses being all built of free ftone, as well as from the narrowness of the streets, which produce double and treble reflections of the fun's C 2 rays: rays: from the month of March, therefore, to the ufual fetting in of the rains in the latter end of June, its heat must be intolerable. Surrounding the city are many ruins of buildings, the effects of Ma DISSERTATION ON THE MOORISH, HINDOO, AND GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. FROM THE SAME. S I am neither fufficiently qualified, nor willing to lofe myfelf in the unfathomable, and perhaps impenetrable darkness of Eaftern an tiquities, I fhall not, for the prefent, fay any thing on the characteristic difference of the original Hindoo, and the more modern ftyle of Moorish Architecture, in which all the great monuments are conftructed; but I fhall confine myself to a few loose remarks on the prototypes, or first models of architecture, as far as it is an art both of taste and convenience. homedan intolerance. One is a large circular edifice, having evidently been a Hindoo temple, or part of one; there are ftill veftiges of fome of the ornaments; and on one part I found the Grecian fcroll. That the Grecian Architecture comprizes all that is excellent in the art, I cannot help confidering as a doctrine, which is in itfelf as erroneous and fervile, as in its confequences it is deftructive of every hope of improvement. Architecture undoubtedly fhould, and must be adapted, to all the climates and countries which mankind inhabit, and is variously, more than any other art, influenced and modified by the nature of the climate and materials, as well as by the habit and purfuits of the inhabitants. 4 I have not read Father Ladola's famous differtation on the abfurdity of the misplaced and unprincipled imitation of Greek architecture; nor am I in the leaft prejudiced against its very eminent beauties and perfections: but why fhould we admire it in an exclufive manner; or, blind to the majesty, boldness, and magni ficence of the Egyptian, Hindoo, Moorish, and Gothic, as admirable wonders of architecture, unmercifully blame and defpife them, because they are more various in their forms, and not reducible to the precife rules of the Greek hut, prototype, and column? or because in smaller parts, perhaps accidentally fimilar, their proportions are different from thofe to which we are become familiar by habit. Allowing what must be allowed, that the Greek columns, as they are drawn and applied by genius, are the most beautiful ftone reprefentations of the wooden props or fupports of their original hut, and that in their general forms, and each fubordinate part, they are the ne plus ultra of fimplicity, ftrength, and elegance, fhall we precipitately determine, that the whole excellence of Architecture depends on the column alone, or forget that its great effect depends rather upon the great maffes and forms, and upon the fymmetry, ftrength, and conveniency? However partial I muft feel, from habit and education, to the Greeks, whofe free and unfettered genius, in a long feries of ages, improved the original hut of a woody country into the incomparable beauties of a marble temple or palace; yet I freely avow that this by no means prevents my entertaining a fimilar partiality for countries, where different models have been brought to an equal perfection. fection. The forms of the first Ka- every where as to form, differ in vabitations have differed, as the re- rious countries only in the nature of fpective countries, climates, and the materials they are built with, manners of the builders, and as the fuch as the boughs of trees, shrubs, nature, abundance, or fcantinefs of creeping plants, reeds, fods, and materials have directed. grafs. Now, if any of these wandering families of hunters and fishermen fhould become flationary, or form into larger focieties, they would foon be difpofed to give to their habitations as much durability and conveniency as their climates, materials, and manner of life would admit of; nor is it probable they would lofe fight of their prototype the wigwam, or materially deviate from it in the external form of their more capacious erection. For conftant refidence, thefe would be improved into the various thatches and huts which I have feen in the South Sea Islands, and which the Negroes on the Coast of Guinea, and the Hottentots, inhabit; high and low, circular or fquare, open at all fides, inclofed with, palifades, matting, or wicker-work hurdles, lattice, or mud walls. They will raife them on piles above the ground, and, as it were, fufpend them in the air, in countries where the dampnefs of the foil, or fudden inundations, would endanger their lives and property; as on the banks of the Marannon, or Oroonoko, in Guiana, and in the inland parts of Surinam: they will keep them low, and, as it were, fink them under ground, in cold climates, where heavy blasts of wind and fnow teach them fuch methods of felf-defence. Wandering nations, of herdfmen, fishermen, and warriors, fuch as the Arabs, Calmucks, Monguls, Tonquefees, Tartars, Efquimeaux, Greenlanders, Laplanders, Samojedes, and Oftiacks, find in the fkins of their cattle, of their flocks, and of their fishes, materials; and in their camels, horfes, bullocks, and fishing boats, conveyances of portable huts, and imitations of their original wigwams, huts and tents, which in fhape will differ more or lefs, according to the different Caverns, deep vallies, fhaggy overhanging rocks, hollow trees, and the thick impenetrable foliage of the foreft, have been equally the natural retreat and occafional habitation of the wild beafts, and of men whom different accidents have left unacquainted with the comforts of fociety, expofed to the inclemencies of the seasons, or to the apprehenfion of dangers from animals of prey, or the no lefs dangerous enemies of their own fpecies. Men are neither born with tools to build with, nor can be fuppofed to have intuitively an innate idea of any particular form of habitation, such as bountiful nature has affigned to the beaver, the swallow, or the bee; but man is born with a native sense of his wants, and with judgment and intellectual powers to improve his fituation by fuch means as the country affords, and as the climate will fuggeft." Thus far I can venture to ftate, not only from what I have read, but likewife by a ftronger conviction, from what I have feen in the various climates and parts of the world in which I have beheld mankind, in almost every stage of negative or pofitive civilization. The hollow tree, and the thick foliage of the foreft, into which even Kings of Ithaca and Britain have reretired, are fitter for occafional than for permanent refidence. They appear evidently imitated in the wigwams of the torpid, wretched, unfettled Pecherais on the frozen coaft of Terra del Fuego; of the equally independent, but not more fortunate New Hollanders, in a milder climate; and of the more civilized and fagacious hunting favages of North America. These wigwams, nearly the fame different materials they are made of. We find them of feal and rein-deer fkins in the north, of hides, felt, or matting; in Arabia or Tartary, in the form of cones, with fquare roofs, and open or shut at the fides. The different habitations will retain more or lefs of their primitive form in proportion as the different builders remain independent and unmixed, unconnected, and in the fame state and culture; and as habit reconciles the human mind to almost every thing, each of these nations or tribes will regard their primitive habitations with the fame eye of partiality as they are prejudiced in favour of their refpective countries; but when encreafing opulence, ambition, or fuccefsful oppreffion, create artificial wants, and the great look for more convenience and diftinction, the national primitive hut or tent will be enlarged, and embellished with what is coftly among them. When emigrations to foreign countries take place, their prototype will follow the colonist, and genius will at laft ftretch and improve it to the last degree of perfection of which it is capable. What this is, or may be, in architecture, we fee with admiration in the old Greek and Roman architecture, which is the thatched wooden hut, metamorphofed by genius iuto a marble edifice, and yet expreffing its original parts in fuch proportions as are confiftent with the nature of stone and marble. Agreeably to the fame principle, the most elegant Chinese buildings are evidently imitations of the tent made of bamboo, where ftrength and flender tapering form admit of higher proportions and wider intercolumniations, and muft, of courfe, make the Greek marble column and its narrow intercolumniation appear heavy in comparison with the Chinese. The Chinefe idea of the beauties of their architecture must differ from that of the Greeks, and the Greek rule of beauty cannot reafona, bly be applied to the principle and materials of Chinese buildings. How far all the above prototypes of buildings are improvable, must be left to the future exertions of genius. The oblong and tapering huts of the people of Easter Island in the Southern Ocean, are hardly im proveable in that country, which is almost destitute of timber. An active people, fuch as its former inhabitants feem to have been, might indeed imitate them in ftone: but would thefe huts fuggeft any idea but that of ribbed oblong arches, tapering on every fide? Even the fimple wigwam will, under the influence of fortunate circumitances, be adorned by genius with all the pomp of Flora ; the rofe, the vine, the honey-fuckle, and the gourd, will be entwined; they will be formed into cool and fhady bowers, like those which the glowing imagination of Milton affigned to our first parents in the garden of Eden. The cavern and grotto, by nature fitted for the fafe retreat and habitation of man, has in itself many advantages; in particular, a folidity and durability, which art has never been able fuccefsfully to imitate: its impenetrable fides and external form are the mountain itself. When airy, fpacious, and lofty within, on a rifing ground, commanding an extenfive profpect and a spring, on the banks of rivers, or in the cliffs on the fea fhore, how defirable in a burning climate; impenetrable to wind and weather how acceptable in cold climates, which are deprived of timber! Let us have a nearer view of its gloomy receffes. They are indifcriminately found in every climate; but in mountainous countries only, in which, as the Swifs philofophers tell us, with a particular complacency to themselves, fagacity fooner ripens into genius, and in which the materials for building artificial mountains and caves are obvious at every step. Violence and fuperior fe |