Many of the houses have
large alcoves; in others there are spacious saloons on the first
floor, which rest on pillars and occupy the whole front of the
house; many of these halls were separated by partition walls into
smaller open saloons. At both corners of the hall were decorated
pavilions, and at the further end, doors leading to the interior of
the house. These halls are generally used as shops and places of
business; also as the resort of idlers, who sit upon mats and
ottomans, smoking their hookas and watching the bustle in the
streets. In other houses, again, the front walls were painted in
fresco, with terrible-looking dragons, tigers, lions, twice or
thrice as large as life, stretching their tongues out, with hideous
grimaces; or with deities, flowers, arabesques, etc., without sense
or taste grouped together, miserably executed, and bedaubed with the
most glaring colours.
The numerous handsome Hindoo temples, all built upon lofty stone
terraces, form an agreeable feature of the town. They are higher,
more capacious, and finer buildings than those of Benares, with the
exception of the Bisvishas.
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