151. They then depicted their sacred temples before the spirits of our world, who said that they had never seen anything more magnificent. I can describe them, because I too saw them. They are built not of felled trees, but of ones growing in their native soil. They said that their world contained trees of wonderful height and size. From their earliest stages they arrange these trees in rows to form porticoes and walkways, shaping the branches while still supple, and cutting and pruning them, so that as they grow they will interlace and join to make the floor and pavement of the temple. They make the branches at the sides grow up to form walls, and overhead bend them into arches to make a roof. From these materials they construct with admirable skill a temple raised high above the ground. They make a way up composed of branches stretched out horizontally with no space between and firmly bound together. In addition they decorate such a temple both inside and out with various kinds of topiary work; and so they build up whole parks.
But I was not allowed to see what these temples were like inside. I was only told that sunlight is admitted through openings between the branches, and is everywhere passed through crystals, which turn the light around the walls into colours like the rainbow, especially shades of blue and orange, which they particularly like. This is their architecture, which they prefer to the most magnificent palaces of our world.
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