except where the elaborately constructed water-channels of the Rayas
enabled the land to be irrigated; and in these parts rich gardens
and woods, and luxurious crops of rice and sugar-cane, abounded. Here
and there were wonderfully carved temples and fanes to Hindu deities,
with Brahmanical colleges and schools attached to the more important
amongst their number.

As to the appearance of the scenery, I cannot do better than quote the
description given in 1845 by a distinguished South-Indian geologist,
Lieutenant Newbold:[126] --

"The whole of the extensive site occupied by the ruins of Bijanugger
on the south bank of the Tumbuddra, and of its suburb Annegundi on the
northern bank, is occupied by great bare piles and bosses of granite
and granitoidal gneiss, separated by rocky defiles and narrow rugged
valleys encumbered by precipitated masses of rock. Some of the larger
flat-bottomed valleys are irrigated by aqueducts from the river.... The
peaks, tors, and logging-stones of Bijanugger and Annegundi indent the
horizon in picturesque confusion, and are scarcely to be distinguished
from the more artificial ruins of the ancient metropolis of the Deccan,
which are usually constructed with blocks quarried from their sides,
and vie in grotesqueness of outline and massiveness of character
with the alternate airiness and solidity exhibited by nature in the
nicely-poised logging stones and columnar piles, and in the walls of
prodigious cuboidal blocks of granite which often crest and top her
massive domes and ridges in natural cyclopean masonry."

The remains of palaces, temples, walls, and gateways are still to be
seen, and these abound not only on the site of Vijayanagar proper,
but also on the north side of the swiftly rushing river, where stood