It is a structure positively as clear as the sun, and as fair as the
moon--the sole great human work in the making of which no restraining
thought of cost has played a part: one of its steps alone being of more
cost than all the temples, mosques and besestins, the palaces, pagodas
and cathedrals, built between the ages of the Nimrods and the Napoleons.
The house itself is very small--only 40 ft. long, by 35 broad, by 27
high: yet the structure as a whole is sufficiently enormous, high
uplifted: the rest of the bulk being occupied by the platform, on which
the house stands, each side of this measuring at its base 480 ft., its
height from top to bottom 130 ft, and its top 48 ft. square, the
elevation of the steps being just nearly 30 degrees, and the top reached
from each of the four points of the compass by 183 low long steps, very
massively overlaid with smooth molten gold--not forming a continuous
flight, but broken into threes and fives, sixes and nines, with landings
between the series, these from the top looking like a great terraced
parterre of gold.
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