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128 THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT’S JOURNAL. [May 1,1668. as a thoroughfare all round the building of the verandah, have combined to exclude corridors almost entirely from dwelling houses ; and your life in an Indian bungalow (or house) is public to a degree that would here seem strange, and would, in fact, be unsuitable to a temperate climate. The general plan of all buildings for the tropics ought to be, as will have been already understood, very simple, and at once compact and roomy. All servants reside apart, and few stores are kept in any house; consequently, buildings in tended for residence are relieved from almost all that gives rise to great complication in Europe. The external verandah will be found to swell the bulk of the building extraordinarily, but then it is constantly used for every sort of purpose to which room-space might have been appropriated; and it is also so capable of furnishing here and there an odd corner to be cut off for odd purposes, that it enables the architect to reduce greatly the number of parts into which the block of his build ing is divided, and to render the form as simple as possible. Over this simple mass a simple roof should be thrown. If not a terrace, its pitch should be flat, and its eaves overhang ing, so as to give most shadow and throw the heavy tropical rains well off the foot of the walls. In many, perhaps in most hot countries however, flat roofs are the rule, their comfort during the hot part of the year being felt to overbalance their inferiority in the rainy season. The dome also forms a leading feature of many Oriental styles of building. In one or two good Mahommedan domestic buildings which I visited, I found the storeys but low. This, however, would not at all satisfy any European residents, or, I think, be suit able to our great need in a sultry climate, of all the air we can get. The ordinary height of a storey is about eighteen or twenty feet; and stairs being a serious fatigue in a hot climate, buildings of many storeys are not common. An underground basement is not usual, it would become a harbour for vermin and filth, and would be flooded or damp in the monsoon (or wet) season. The ground-floor is usually not less than from two to three feet above the level of the surrounding earth, and raised on a solid terrace. This height is, I believe, chiefly given as a protection against moisture, and hollow floors are avoided because vermin and snakes would be sure to get into them. Many residences, where ground is plentiful, are only one storey in height, and few buildings could conveniently have more than three storeys. I may here suggest that the frequent use in hot climates of timber-built houses, of only one storey high, may be in part accounted for by their being safer than any other in times of earthquake. This can hardly, however, be the reason of their use in Bombay. Between the ceiling of the top storey and the roof there should be a space well ventilated and unoccupied, to keep the top storey cool, a precaution often neglected. It may be almost unnecessary to remark that no fireplace or chimneys are ordinarily required, and that kitchens ought to be, where practicable, an outbuilding apart. Coming now to the openings for doors and windows, they will rarely require to be filled, inside the building or out. with a solid door or shutter. The ordinary window is a large case ment hung folding, and each fold in two flaps; the flaps are divided into several heights, and filled with louvres, like those of a Venetian blind, only finer, and capable of being set close or open; the ordinary internal door is of the same character. Internal openings arc often, however, not even fitted with doors of this sort, but left as arches to be closed occasionally by the use of silk or open black wood screens, often of beautiful de sign, reaching only to the springing of the arch, and with a space of a foot in depth left clear underneath to admit a cur rent of air along the floor. This substitution of some sort of pierced work for panels, I may observe, is carried out in many directions. In some of the beautiful Mahommedan buildings the panels of pierced brasswork and pierced stone which occur in the openings form the most beautiful decorative feature con ceivable. These have been elaborated in such a case as the window in the Mosque of Seedee Seyeed, at Ahmedabad, to a point which challenges comparison with our most complete tracery. Other modes of filling openings may be used; for example in Cairo and many other Eastern cities the most effect ive grilles for filling windows are formed of small turned wooden spokes fitted together in a simple effective way. In the Egyptian Okcl, in the park of the Paris Exhibition, this was well shown, as were other peculiarities of structures suited for hot climates. In most, or all, tropical climates, it is at times necessary to keep out the wet, and sometimes even the air, from external openings. I believe, indeed, that, in some very hot inland re gions, away from the sea breezes, the air is so hot during the sunshiny hours that it is customary to keep it out instead of letting it in. Here, of course, external openings are made capable of being thoroughly closed, and comparatively small. It also is necessary in some districts to be able to shut out night-fogs, or sea-fogs, or some other injurious state of the air, and even cold winds ; and in Bombay, which is on the sea shore, I found that it was necessary to be provided with the means of closing external openings against the humidity of the monsoon (or wet) season, and even against driving dust; ac cordingly there all window-frames have two sets of folding case ments, one with the Venetian louvres already described, the other glazed, and kept folded back out of the way, except in the wet season. 1 am not aware that our sash windows have ever been attempted to be employed, and they are just such a contrivance as I should expect would be ill carried out by native workmen. Casements in solid frames are preferable, and those frames that I have seen, internal doors as well as windows, are always framed with a cill, which in doorways you have to step over. It is, not, I think, usually requisite to make provision for strongly protecting any buildingfor European occupation against robbery. It is usual to have watchmen patrolling round even private houses all the night, and more reliance is placed on them for protection than on fastenings or doors. Notwithstanding the general simplicity upon which I have insisted, one or two points in the arrangement of buildings where Europeans are to reside, in India, at least, often cause some perplexity to the architect; but these it is imperative he should attend to. For instance, the bedroom of any European entitled to the smallest comfort must have appended to it a bath-room, in which stands, on a large cement platform with a raised ledge, a large sponging bath : this has to be daily filled by a water-bearer : often it is so placed as to be filled through a pipe, without his actually entering the room ; but however this may be, the arrangement is not that water is laid on as in England, but that it is brought daily, in a skin, on a man’s shoulder to the outside, if not the inside of the room. For this purpose, consequently, access must be reserved for the Bheestie (or water-carrier). But this is not all. In or adjoining each dressing-room is a convenience taking the place of a water- closet. The system of water conservancy is not established, and may probably never be found available in India ; while even the more suitable system of Mr. Moule and his earth closets would not obviate the necessity of removing, more or less frequently, faecal matter by hand. This is at present done twice daily, and the persons whose business it is do this work (and who are termed sweepers) must not, both on account of the offensive nature of their work and on account of their low ness of caste, come into the building so as to risk their contact with higher caste servants. Hence it becomes necessary to provide a sweepers’ staircase, and often several such (which are very frequently external staircases), more or less open, with means of access along verandahs or otherwise to the exter nal wall of each dressing, and to form at each convenience a small doorway through the wall. In a complicated building this necessity for a dressing-room to each bed-room, and for a secluded and external access to each dressing-room for the water carrier and the sweeper, makes no inconsiderable demand on the ingenuity of the architect and even on the space at his command. I may add that as regards bath water a regular system of drain pipes to carry it off does not seem usual. Provision is made for discharging it by some simple outlet to the exterior of the building, where it flows over the surface of the ground, and soon sinks in or is evaporated by the sun’s heat. Here it may be fitting to add, by the bye, that eaves-gutters and down-pipes, and means of storing rain water do not seem to be in use. Another peculiarity of tropical life is that as every European who can afford it must ride to his business, and about his business, or his pleasure, every building requires a carriage porch, sheltered from the wet of the moonson and the heat of the other seasons. Every house and most public buildings