It is approached fathers styled Wellington "the Duke." through a double avenue of poplars, which terminates at a gateway ornamented with faience and flanked by ruined minarets. Behind these stands an octagonal structure with a deeply fluted dome. The entrance on the left of the tomb leads to a vaulted corridor, and then to a chamber 35 feet square, with a cupola 115 feet from the floor. On each side there is an arched recess with Alhambresque mouldings, and the walls are covered with six-sided plates of transparent gypsum. The interior is severely simple, as becomes the last resting-place of so great a man. "Only a stone," whispered the dying emperor; " and my name upon it!" And so he rests beneath a block of dark-green jade-the largest in the world.1 On the right of the conqueror's memorial stone is one of grey marble commemorating his grandson Ulugh Beg, a distinguished astronomer, who compiled tables showing the position of the fixed stars, admitted to be the best which have come down to us from Mohammedan times. In the recess facing Mekka there hangs a large standard with a pendant of horse-hair, emblem of a militant faith; and between it and Timur's tomb is a grey marble slab dedicated to his friend and tutor, Mir Sayyid Barākā, for whom he built this mausoleum in 1386.2 The recess in the east contains a slab of granite erected to a descendant of the Prophet, named Hājji Imām 'Umr. The central group of cenotaphs, numbering eight in all, is surrounded by a balustrade in fretwork of transparent gypsum. The actual tombs are in a crypt of exquisite proportions, which is 1 The exact measurements of this stone are 6′ 41′′ × 1′ 31′′ × 1' 5" deep. Round the edge is an Arabic inscription giving Tîmūr's style and title, his genealogy, and the date of his death,-807 A. H., or 1405 of our era. 2 M. Schuyler states this man's name as Mir Seid Belki Shaikh, and the date of his death as two years after Timur's, i.e. 1407 (ii. p. 253). reached by a flight of steps. Here lies all that is mortal of one whose empire extended from the Vistula to the China Seas, who in the brief intervals between his conquering expeditions found time to embellish his capital with structures which, even in their decay, rank among the wonders of the world. The centre of Samarkand life is the great open market-square called the Rigistān. Its southern side is open to the street, and the other three are occupied by as many great colleges, or madrasas. That which stands on the east side was built in the time of Imām Kuli Khan (1648), and is known as the Shir Dar (or the Lion-bearing), from uncouth representations of the Lion and Sun of Persia on the four corners above its gigantic recessed portal. At either extremity of the façade rise melon - shaped domes and tall minarets leaning outwards. That nearest the street exhibits a frieze of dog's-tooth mouldings, resembling those which occur in our oldest Norman churches. A cloister-like passage gives access to an immense courtyard surrounded by cubicles and classrooms in two storeys, each pair under an enamelled arch. A flight of brickwork stairs leads to the summit of the lofty gateway, whence one has a view which is second to none in Asia. The eye ranges over a leafy sea, from which vast raised arches and domes emerge, and rests on snow-clad mountains which close the horizon on the north and east. The madrasa of Tilā Kārī, on the north side, is so styled from a plating of gold foil under translucent enamel which covers the holy place of a mosque on the left of its courtyard.1 That founded by Timūr's astronomer grandson, Ulugh Beg, is opposite Shir Dār, and is the smallest but most beautiful of the group. Unhappily, it has suffered even more than the others from 1 1 Schuyler, ii. p. 252. Tilă = gold. earthquakes. Of the five minarets which once adorned its angles, that on the south-east has fallen, and the rest are much out of the perpendicular. This universal tendency of Samarkand minarets is a standing enigma to visitors. That these minarets are out of the perpendicular may be easily proved by ascending one of them and lowering a plumb-line; but it will probably continue to excite controversy till these forlorn towers have crumbled into ruins. Such has already been the fate of the grandest of Samarkand's monuments, the Bibi Khānūm, which stands on rising ground north-east of the Rīgistān. Like the Taj Mahāl of Agra, it records a widowed husband's passionate sorrow; for she who sleeps below was Timur's most loved wife, the daughter of the emperor of China. The actual tomb is a mass of shapeless ruins, for centuries of gross neglect have done their work, and a climax was given to the work of Time's destroying hand by an earthquake which shook Samarkand on the 5th November 1897. The approach lies through a gateway which scarcely retains a trace of the original design. This opens on a garden with a mosque on either side, while the front is occupied by a building which still inspires awe by its grandeur and perfect proportions. The front exhibits a recessed portal, sixty feet wide and higher than that of Peterborough Cathedral, and an octagonal minaret at either extremity. Between them rises a stupendous dome, with a double frieze of blue, green, and yellow enamel, on which texts from the Koran gleam brightly in gold lettering. The interior is a square of fifty feet, adorned with arabesques. In the centre once stood a colossal rahla, or lectern of white marble, which once held a Koran, spreading over fifty-four square feet when open. A tradition has it that Bibi Khānūm, who founded this noble mosque, was wont to read it from a window set high in the |