Page:Bulandshahr- Or, Sketches of an Indian District- Social, Historical and Architectural.djvu/103

 turrets at the corners, surmounted by domed and pinnacled stone kiosques 46 feet high. The rooms are intended as lodges for the gardener and watchman, and have an upper unroofed story with arcaded fronts of red brick, the whole being surmounted by a parapet of white stone posts and panels. The variety of colour afforded by the employment of so many different materials and styles of construction affords a pleasing effect, and is to some extent a novelty. There was formerly a superstitious prejudice in the native mind against the use of block kankar except for under-ground work, such as wells and foundations; and a trader, who built four of the shops on the embankment on his own responsibility, refused to conform in this respect to the specification with which I had supplied him, and in the back-wall, where lime-stone had been used for the other shops, he substituted brick. This was afterwards plastered and pointed so as to make it look, as much as possible, like the rest of the line, but the difference cannot be concealed, and it remains a disfigurement, though being at the back it is not greatly noticed. Since then I have used it so freely and with such obvious success, that the prejudice against it may be considered as almost extinct.

Another building, which occupies a corner in the Moti Bagh, is the Station Bath. Even this peculiarly English institution has furnished an opportunity for an ingenious adaptation of oriental architecture. The tank itself is open to the sky, but is surrounded by a corridor—made double at one end for a dressing-room—with brick arcades facing the water, and solid external walls of block kankar masonry. A flight of stairs leads to the roof which is flat, and can therefore be used for taking headers from, or as a terrace commanding a pleasant view of the garden. The windows have arched wooden frames with balustrades and shutters, all elegantly carved in a variety of patterns, and the doors are a still more elaborate piece of carpentry, like those in the Town Hall. Over the entrance is a stone niche with inscriptions in English and Hindustani, recording that this gift for the use of the European residents of the station was made by Saiyid Hasan Shah, the Honorary Magistrate for the town and the vice-President of the Municipality. The cost has amounted to Rs. 3,600. The site is most convenient as the Library and Racket Court are immediately opposite. These were built some years ago and are more useful than ornamental; but they have been brought into harmony with their new surroundings, by the