Page:The Great Secret.djvu/165

Rh trailed over the walls in free and lavish grace, laden with fruit; broad marble steps, with balustrades of the same material, lead from the garden up to open courtyards, all inlaid and tessellated, where seats were spread, wrought in curious patterns and shapes, from wood and metals; rich hangings of tapestry and awnings of silk hung from the open windows and doorways; long open corridors, with the roofs supported by sculptured pillars, ranged round the buildings, with the upper verandahs all filigreed and festooned with flowers. Turrets and domes reared above these again, their massive strength concealed by the carvings which covered them from base to summit.

The sculptors must have had a labour of love and free hands, with time and material unstinted, for every object that was beautiful in Nature had been reproduced in strong relief and delicate finish; flowers and tendrils in marble and in bold relief clung round the pillars and cornices, statues of perfect womanhood, youth and childhood met the eye at every turn; the grotesque, horrible or unnatural had no place in these masterpieces.

Fountains gushed from walls into beautiful basins, to escape from these down artfully-constructed cascades with a silvery splashing. White showers of spray rose into the air and fell like soft mist over the glistening limbs of marble nymphs. In the open streets also these fountains and wells were to be seen at frequent intervals.

The whole bed of the valley was a series of terraces, as were the hills on either side, with flights of broad stairs from one level stretch to the lower level, and in this fashion that principal street descended, as the stream, now a river, did, in a series of cascades and