marvellous splendour and dazzling
loveliness, shone out the Temple of the Sun -- the peculiar pride
of the Zu-Vendi, to whom it was what Solomon's, or rather Herod's,
Temple was to the Jews. The wealth, and skill, and labour of
generations had been given to the building of this wonderful
place, which had been only finally completed within the last
fifty years. Nothing was spared that the country could produce,
and the result was indeed worthy of the effort, not so much on
account of its size -- for there are larger fanes in the world
-- as because of its perfect proportions, the richness and beauty
of its materials, and the wonderful workmanship. The building
(that stands by itself on a space of some eight acres of garden
ground on the hilltop, around which are the dwelling-places of
the priests) is built in the shape of a sunflower, with a dome-covered
central hall, from which radiate twelve petal-shaped courts,
each dedicated to one of the twelve months, and serving as the
repositories of statues reared in memory of the illustrious dead.
The width of the circle beneath the dome is three hundred feet,
the height of the dome is four hundred feet, and the length of
the rays is one hundred and fifty feet, and the height of their
roofs three hundred feet, so that they run into the central dome
exactly as the petals of the sunflower run into the great raised
heart. Thus the exact measurement from the centre of the central
altar to the extreme point of any one of the rounded rays would
be three hundred feet (the width of the circle itself), or a
total of six hundred feet from the rounded extremity of one ray
or petal to the extremity of the opposite one. {Endnote 14}

The building itself is of pure and polished white marble, which
shows out in marvellous contrast to the red granite of the frowning
city, on whose brow it glistens indeed like an imperial diadem
upon the forehead of a dusky queen. The outer surface of the
dome and of the twelve petal courts is covered entirely with
thin sheets of beaten gold; and from the extreme point of the
roof of each of these petals a glorious golden form with a trumpet
in its hand and widespread wings is figured in the very act of
soaring into space. I really must leave whoever reads this to
imagine the surpassing beauty of these golden roofs flashing
when the sun strikes -- flashing like a thousand fires aflame
on a mountain of polished marble -- so fiercely that the reflection