Note 57 — Chapter V

The oldest pagodas in India, and a great many of the ancient Egyptian temples, are cut out in the solid rock. This mode of architecture, peculiar to the oldest nations, was derived from the nature of their own dwellings. It is probable that the first men lived in mountainous districts, and that holes or cavities in the earth, partly natural and partly formed by art, were their earliest habitations. The Troglodytes, that is, the inhabiters of holes, dug out places of the like kind for performing their religious worship. At later periods they ventured to quit the mountains to reside on low hills and plains; and, that they might not suffer from inundations, to build houses and towns on artificial eminences, and to dig canals and ditches in order to procure earth for making these artificial mounts. In places destitute of stones they built habitations of brick dried in the sun, which they cemented together by means of lime, bitumen, and other substances. It was not till periods much later that burnt bricks and cut stone began to be employed for building temples and palaces. F.