Upon closer observation I saw as we passed them that the
buildings were deserted, and while not greatly decayed had the appearance of not having been tenanted for years, possibly for ages.
As the front of it passed under the warring
buildings, both went into action again--one
building dropping bombs into the street, being attacked from across the street, and in return replying to that attack.
Below, every point of vantage bristled with spectators, the roofs of the towering
buildings, the public squares, the active ferry boats, and every favourable street intersection had its crowds: all the river piers were dense with people, the Battery Park was solid black with east-side population, and every position of advantage in Central Park and along Riverside Drive had its peculiar and characteristic assembly from the adjacent streets.
Upon the opposite side rose
buildings of an architecture unknown to him, yet strangely beautiful.
As the citizens in general are to eat at public tables in certain companies, and it is necessary that the walls should have bulwarks and towers in proper places and at proper distances, it is evident that it will be very necessary to have some of these in the towers; let the
buildings for this purpose be made the ornaments of the walls.
The style of these
buildings evinces that the architect possessed neither the art of using lime or cement of any kind, nor the skill to throw an arch, construct a roof, or erect a stair ; and yet, with all this ignorance, showed great ingenuity in selecting the situation of Burghs, and regulating the access to them, as well as neatness and regularity in the erection, since the
buildings themselves show a style of advance in the arts scarcely consistent with the ignorance of so many of the principal branches of architectural knowledge.
After viewing the
buildings, which really appeared to some advantage under the bright but mellow light of the moon, our heroine turned her eyes to a scrutiny of the different figures they passed, in search of any form that she knew.
The chutes into which the hogs went climbed high up--to the very top of the distant
buildings; and Jokubas explained that the hogs went up by the power of their own legs, and then their weight carried them back through all the processes necessary to make them into pork.
As I approached the purlieus of the inhabited portion of the city I was made aware of the proximity of the warriors' quarters by the squealing and grunting of the thoats and zitidars corralled within the hollow courtyards formed by the
buildings surrounding each square.
In the valley beneath lay the city they had just left, its more prominent
buildings showing as in an isometric drawing--among them the broad cathedral tower, with its Norman windows and immense length of aisle and nave, the spires of St Thomas's, the pinnacled tower of the College, and, more to the right, the tower and gables of the ancient hospice, where to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale.
"Still, I hate to leave them, though there is naught else to do," and so the two turned from the courtyard, and making their way into one of the broad avenues, crept stealthily in the shadows of the
building toward the great central plaza upon which were the
buildings occupied by the green warriors when they visited the deserted city.
Several miles to the south I found a small, wooded valley in the center of which--please don't think me crazy, sir--is a regular city--streets,
buildings, a central plaza with a lagoon, good-sized
buildings with domes and minarets and all that sort of stuff."