The Bombay buildings are a mixture of Hindu, Gothic and Saracenic architecture, blended with taste and success, and in the center, to crown the group, rises a stately clock tower of beautiful proportions.  All of these buildings have been erected during the last thirty years, the most of them with public money, many by private munificence.  The material is chiefly green and gray stone.  Each has ample approaches from all directions, which contribute to the general effect, and is surrounded by large grounds, so that it can be seen to advantage from any point of view.  Groves of full-grown trees furnish a noble background, and wide lawns stretch before and between.  There is parking along the shore of the bay, then a broad drive, with two sidewalks, a track for bicycles and a soft path for equestrians, all overhung with far-stretching boughs of immense and ancient trees, which furnish a grateful shade against the sun and add to the beauty of the landscape.  I do not know of any such driveway elsewhere, and it extends for several miles, starting from an extensive common or parade ground, which is given up to games and sports.  Poor people are allowed to camp there in tents in hot weather, for there, if anywhere, they can keep cool, because the peninsula upon which Bombay stands is narrow at that point, and if a breeze is blowing from any direction they get it.  At intervals the boulevard is intersected by small, well-kept parks with band stands, and is broken by walks, drives, beds of flowers, foliage, plants and other landscape decorations; and this in the midst of a great city.

On the inside of the boulevard, following the contour of the shore of the bay, is first, Elphinstone College, then the Secretariat, which is the headquarters of the government and contains several state apartments of noble proportions and costly decorations.  The building is 443 feet long, with a tower 170 feet high.  Next it are the buildings of the University of Bombay, a library with a tower 260 feet high, a convocation hall of beautiful design and perfect proportions and other buildings.  Then comes the Courts of Justice; an immense structure nearly 600 feet long, with a tower 175 feet high, which resembles the Law Courts of London, and is as appropriate as it is imposing.  The department of public works has the next building; then the postoffice department, the telegraph department, the state archives building and patent office in order.  The town hall contains several fine rooms and important historic pictures.  The mint is close to the town hall, and next beyond it are the offices of the Port Trust, which would correspond to our harbor commissioners.  Then follow in order the Holy Trinity Church, the High School, St. Xavier’s College, the Momey Institute, Wilson College, long rows of barracks, officers’ quarters and clubs, the Sailors’ Home, several hospitals, a school of art and Elphinstone High School, which is 452 by 370 feet in size and one of the most palatial educational institutions I have ever seen, the splendid group culminating in the Victoria Railway station, which is the finest in the world and almost as large as any we have in the United States.