THE INTERIOR.
NOTE.--The following Guide conducts the visitor up the Colonnade from
the Railway Station, through the South Wing into the building. Passing
through the nearest section of the Natural History Illustrations, he
proceeds direct to the front of the _Screen of the Kings and Queens of
England_, from whence he walks up the Nave to the _Great Central
Transept_, and then commences the series of _Fine Arts Courts_ with
the _Egyptian Court_, continuing it with the _Greek Court_, the _Roman
Court_, and, through the division for the Tropical End, the _Alhambra
Court_, and the _Assyrian Court_. Then crossing this end of the
building, he continues the series of Courts on the other side with the
_Byzantine Court_, the _German Mediæval Court_, the _English Mediæval
Court_, the _French and Italian Mediæval Court_, the _Renaissance
Court_, the _Elizabethan Court_, the _Italian Court_, and the _Italian
Vestibule_. The _Court of Monuments of Art_ is next, from which the
visitor crosses the Central Transept to the west, and explores the
_Stationery Court_ and the adjacent departments, then the _Birmingham
Court_, the _Sheffield Court_, and the _Pompeian House_, from which he
crosses the South Transept, and enters the _Natural History
Department_, having inspected which, he returns up the building on the
other side, through the _Foreign Glass Manufactures Court_, the
_British Porcelain Manufactures Court_, the _Ceramic Court_, and the
_Court of Fancy Manufactures_. Returning then to the Screen of the
Kings and Queens of England, the visitor examines the collections of
the _Nave_, the _South Transept_, the _Great Central Transept_, the
_North Transept_, and the _Tropical End of the Building_. The _Botany
of the Palace_ is then described. The _Main and Upper Galleries_, in
which will be found the _Picture Gallery_, the _Naval Museum_, the
_Engineering Models_, the _Indian Court_, the _Industrial Museum and
Technological Collection_, and the _Industrial Exhibition_ (described
in the Exhibitors’ Descriptive Catalogue, page 175), should be next
visited; and, after them, the _Agricultural Machinery_, and the
_Machinery in Motion_, which are exhibited in the basement story next
the Gardens: the basement is reached by descending the stairs from
either of the Transepts.
THE CRYSTAL PALACE.
THE ENTRANCE.
The Crystal Palace Railway from London Bridge, and the West End Railway
from Pimlico, unite at the Station, in the grounds of the Crystal
Palace. The Station is connected with the South Wing of the building by
a glass-covered colonnade, along which is planted a brilliant array of
flowering plants, whilst luxuriant creeping plants adorn the wall. The
Fine Art Courts commence with the Egyptian Court, at the Central
Transept, from whence the sequence is continued round the northern
portion of the Nave. The Central Transept then will be the proper
starting-point. When the weather is fine, the visitor may cross the
gardens from the Railway Station direct to the central entrance on the
upper terrace. We assume that he proceeds by the more usual way of the
Colonnade, through the South Wing, until he attains the floor of the
main building. He then passes through the Natural History illustrations
which are nearest, and which he will examine hereafter; and, keeping to
this, the south end of the Palace, proceeds towards the centre of the
Nave, taking his stand opposite the Screen of the Kings and Queens of
England, which bounds the long Nave at this end. From this point an
unrivalled general view is obtained of the interior of the building. In
the foreground is the Crystal Fountain, which adorned the Palace in Hyde
Park, but here elevated in its proportions and improved. It is
surrounded by a sheet of water, at each end of which float the gigantic
leaves of the _Victoria Regia_, the intermediate space being occupied by
various aquatic plants,--the _Nymphæa Devoniensis_, the _Nymphæa
cærulea_, the _Nymphæa dentata_, and the _Nelumbium speciosum_, or
sacred bean of the Pythagoreans, being conspicuous, with many others,
beautiful, rare, or curious. The basin is also encircled with rich
flowers. On either side of the Nave the plants of almost every clime
wave their foliage, forming a mass of cool, pleasant colour, admirably
harmonising with the surrounding tints, and also acting as a most
effective background to relieve the white statues, which are
picturesquely grouped along the Nave; at the back of these are the
façades of the various Industrial and Fine Art Courts, whose bright
colouring gives additional brilliancy to the interior, whilst the aërial
blue tint of the arched roof above considerably increases the effect of
the whole composition, having the effect of an opal vault. Towards
evening the interior of the Palace appears like a vocal grove, the
visitor hearing with delight the beautiful note of the nightingale,
together with that of blackbirds, thrushes, wrens, and robin-redbreasts,
which build and make a perpetual home of this magnificent covered
garden.
[Illustration: VIEW OF PALACE FROM SECOND TERRACE.]
Let the visitor now proceed up the building until he arrives at the
Central Transept, at which point he will be enabled to judge of the
vastness of the hall in the midst of which he stands, and of the whole
structure of which the transept forms so noble and conspicuous a part.