The extreme perfection and beauty of the brickwork astonished me.

The bricks are exceedingly fine and hard, with sharp angles and true surfaces.

They are laid with great exactness, without visible mortar or cement, yet somehow fastened together so that the joints are hardly perceptible, and sometimes the two surfaces coalesce in a most incomprehensible manner.
Such admirable brickwork I have never seen before or since.

There was no sculpture here, but an abundance of bold projections and finely-worked mouldings.

Traces of buildings exist for many miles in every direction, and almost every road and pathway shows a foundation of brickwork beneath it--the paved roads of the old city.