ruins were quite uninjured by time; and one small stone structure was so
complete as to be scarcely more dilapidated in appearance than would be
any other old and neglected stone building in Hili-li. The stone of
which the various structures were composed had never in all the
centuries of their residence there been found by the Hili-lites
elsewhere than in these buildings; the supposition being that it came
from the great surrounding continent. But, after all, the real
peculiarity of these buildings was in their architecture. The difficulty
of obtaining from Peters any architectural facts, you will never
appreciate unless you attempt, as I have done, to procure such
information. He declares that in these buildings were neither columns
nor arches; and he also declares that the absence of arches and columns
he knows, not only from his own observation, but because that fact was
alluded to in his presence by the Hili-lite members of the party; yet he
is equally certain that in one of the larger of the ruins the roof was
intact. How a roof could be supported without reasonable vertical
resistance, and without arch resistance, I am unable to say; and it is
wholly improbable that the walls in a building of its dimensions could,
without an arch, support a roof. The Hellenes, you recall, were very
artful in hiding from observation the arch, though they frequently
employed it. I admit that I must have greatly bored old man Peters over
this subject of architecture; and as I myself know next to nothing of
the subject, technically, and he knows absolutely nothing of it,
technically or otherwise, and as he took no interest in the ruins even
when they were before his eyes, you will understand that my information
concerning these ruins is not very clear. It was also utterly impossible
for me to gain from the old man data upon which to base an opinion as to
the style of architecture of these structures. The buildings generally
were very large, very beautiful, and constructed in a style entirely
distinct from any known ancient style--that is, for instance, they were