381. Temple at Macao. (From a Sketch by the Author.)
Taas.
The objects of Chinese architecture with which the European eye is most familiar are the taas, or nine-storeyed pagodas, as they are usually called. In the south they generally have that number of storeys, but not always, and in the north it ranges from three to thirteen. As before hinted, these are nothing but exaggerated tees of dagobas, and it is easy to trace them through all the stages of the change. In India we can easily trace the single wooden chattah or umbrella of Karli ([Woodcut No. 56]) to the nine-storeyed tower at Chittore ([Woodcut No. 143]), and from that the transition is easy to the Chinese examples, although the elaboration of the two was simultaneous, and the Chinese had probably erected tall towers as early as the Jains.
382. Porcelain Tower, Nankin.
Of those which existed in China in our own time the best known is the celebrated porcelain tower at Nankin.[658] Commenced in the year 1412, and finished in 1431, it was erected as a monument of gratitude to an empress of the Ming family, and was, in consequence, generally called the Temple of Gratitude. It was octagonal in form, 236 ft. in height, of which, however, about 30 ft. must be deducted for the iron spire that surmounted it, leaving little more than 200 ft. for the elevation of the building, or about the height of the Monument of London. From the summit of the spire eight chains depended, to each of which were attached nine bells, and a bell was also attached to each angle of the lower roofs, making 144 bells in all, which, when tinkling in harmony to the evening breeze, must have produced an effect as singular as pleasing. It was not, however, either to its dimensions or its bells that the tower owed its celebrity, but to the coating of porcelain which clothed its brick walls, as well as the upper and under sides of the projecting roofs, which mark the division of each storey. The porcelain produced a brilliancy of effect which is totally lost in all the representations of it yet published, but which was, in fact, that on which the architect almost wholly relied for producing the effect he desired, and without which his design is a mere skeleton.