can be clearly seen from the great peaks of the range a hundred
miles away.

It is a marvellous sight -- this golden flower upborne upon the
cool white marble walls, and I doubt if the world can show such
another. What makes the whole effect even more gorgeous is that
a belt of a hundred and fifty feet around the marble wall of
the temple is planted with an indigenous species of sunflower,
which were at the time when we first saw them a sheet of golden
bloom.

The main entrance to this wonderful place is between the two
northernmost of the rays or petal courts, and is protected first
by the usual bronze gates, and then by doors made of solid marble,
beautifully carved with allegorical subjects and overlaid with
gold. When these are passed there is only the thickness of the
wall, which is, however, twenty-five feet (for the Zu-Vendi build
for all time), and another slight wall also of white marble,
introduced in order to avoid causing a visible gap in the inner
skin of the wall, and you stand in the circular hall under the
great dome. Advancing to the central altar you look upon as
beautiful a sight as the imagination of man can conceive. You
are in the middle of the holy place, and above you the great
white marble dome (for the inner skin, like the outer, is of
polished marble throughout) arches away in graceful curves something
like that of St Paul's in London, only at a slighter angle, and
from the funnel-like opening at the exact apex a bright beam
of light pours down upon the golden altar. At the east and the
west are other altars, and other beams of light stab the sacred
twilight to the heart. In every direction, 'white, mystic, wonderful',
open out the ray-like courts, each pierced through by a single
arrow of light that serves to illumine its lofty silence and
dimly to reveal the monuments of the dead. {Endnote 15}

Overcome at so awe-inspiring a sight, the vast loveliness of
which thrills the nerves like a glance from beauty's eyes, you
turn to the central golden altar, in the midst of which, though
you cannot see it now, there burns a pale but steady flame crowned
with curls of faint blue smoke. It is of marble overlaid with
pure gold, in shape round like the sun, four feet in height,
and thirty-six in circumference. Here also, hinged to the foundations
of the altar, are twelve petals of beaten gold. All night and,
except at one hour, all day also, these petals are closed over
the altar itself e