Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/166



 1. ECONOMY OF EUROPEANS.—HOUSES.—Those of Bengal are of the Grecian style of architecture, large, airy, elegant, commodious, and self contained; with numerous office houses detached; the whole inclosed with a mud wall, the area of which is called by the name compound. They are built of burnt brick and mortar, plastered out-side as well as inside; the roofs flat, with a terrace upon the top convenient for walking on; the floors either paved with marble, or made of a composition of lime and pounded brick,hard as stone, called puckah; the floors covered with finely woven grass mats, stretched smoothly; the windows all glazed with an internal shutter of Venetians; the ceiling, with the timbers all exposed, in order to detect the inroads of the white ants, and admit of their being easily replaced when destroyed. It is somewhat unaccountable that the roofs of houses in India, especially of government buildings, are not arched and alcoved, as in the Italian style; the original cost would not be much more,the expense of keeping them in repair