are supported each by twelve pillars. The pillars are all equally spaced, the architect having omitted, for the sake of uniformity, to widen the central avenues on the intersection of which the domes stand. It follows from this that the four sides of the octagon supporting the dome, which are parallel to the sides of the court, are shorter than the four diagonal sides. Internally this produces a very awkward appearance; but this could not have been avoided except by running into another difficulty,-that of having oblong spaces at the intersections of the wider aisles with the narrower, to which the smaller domes must have been fitted. Perhaps on the whole the architect took the less inconvenient course of the two. The interior of the court is represented woodcut No. 342, and 342. Court-yard of Great Mosque at Mandoo. From a Sketch by the Author. for simple grandeur and expression of power it may perhaps be taken as one of the very best specimens now to be found in India. It is, however, fast falling to decay, and a few years more may deprive it of most of that beauty with which it impressed me when I visited it in 1829. AHMEDABAD. The city of Ahmedabad, the Moslem capital of Guzerat, is as rich in splendid mosques as Jaunpore or any of the provincial capitals of India, and their style is as distinctive of their locality as in any other instance in this country. The town was built by Ahmed Shah, the second king of his race, who reigned from 1412 to 1443. He founded the great mosque, which for extent and beauty of detail seems to surpass everything of its class, even in India. In this instance the style is Jaina, and the archi tecture may be said to be that of the contemporary temple at Sadree (woodcuts Nos. 54, 55), with details borrowed from the still older temples at Abu (woodcut No. 44). This peculiarity arose not only from the locality, but also because the dynasty was originally of Hindu race, and clung to their own style and old feelings notwithstanding their conversion to Mahomedanism. The admixture of the elaborate and graceful forms of Jaina with the larger and taller proportions of Saracenic architecture makes this style as pleasing, if not more so, than any of the various forms the style takes in India. All the Ahmedabad mosques are similar in design, and vary only in size. They consist of a courtyard surrounded on three sides by open colonnades, the fourth occupied by the mosque itself. This is entered from the court by three large doors, and is surmounted by three domes of somewhat flat outline externally, but internally as richly ornamented as any the Jains ever built. These are invariably supported, like those of the Jains, on 8 pillars, made up to a square with 4 more, so that the smaller mosques have 36 pillars internally, the larger probably twice that number. In all instances the central compartment is raised considerably, and the light admitted through the double colonnade in the roof, as shown in the diagram (woodcut No. 343). This arrangement is similar to the hypethron of the Egyptians explained above (pages 230 et seq.), and is identical with that illustrated in woodcut No. 112 as having existed at Khorsabad. The minarets of these mosques are attached to the central compartment, flanking each side of the principal entrance, and being of a bold Saracenic outline, covered with the richest and most elaborate Hindu carving, they are the most gorgeous things of their kind in India, though neither so graceful as those of Cairo nor so elegant as some at Agra and Delhi. The Guzerat dynasty being of Hindu origin, has left no tombs worthy of notice. But their palaces, their bowlees, and generally their civic buildings, are as beautiful and as splendid as their mosques, but unfortunately as little known either from drawings or descriptions. DELHI AND AGRA. The older Pathan mosques at Delhi and its neighbourhood show the same peculiarities of simple uniformity of design, and number of small domes generally grouped around one or three larger ones. Before the conquests by the Moguls, however, this style had in a great measure been superseded by a more artistic and ornamental style of buildings. The body of the mosque became generally an oblong hall, covered by one central dome flanked by two others of the same horizontal dimensions, but not so lofty, and separated from the central dome by a broad bold arch, whose mouldings and decorations formed one of the principal ornaments of the building. The pendentives were even more remarkable than the arches for elaborateness of detail. Their forms are so various that it is impossible to classify or describe them; perhaps the most usual is that represented woodcut No. 344, where the angle is filled up with a number of small imitations of arches, bracketing one beyond the other. It was this form that afterwards was converted into the honeycomb work of the Arabs in Spain. The façades of these mosques too became far more ornamental and more frequently encrusted with marbles, and always ornamented with sculpture of a rich and beautiful character; the angles of the building were also relieved by little kiosks, supported by four richly bracketed pillars, but never with minarets, which, so far as I know, were never attached to mosques during the Pathan period. The call to prayer was made from the roof, or at Jaunpore perhaps from the top of the great propylon; but I do not know one single instance of a minaret built for such a purpose, though they were, as we know, universal in Egypt and elsewhere long before this period, and were considered nearly indispensable in the works of the Moguls very shortly afterwards. They seem to have regarded the minar as the Italians viewed the Campanile, more as a symbol of power and of victory than as an adjunct to a church, which it became under the true Gothic architects of the North. When the Moguls had established themselves on the throne of the defeated Pathans, in the early part of the 16th century, they found the style of architecture wholly emancipated from the trammels of Indian art, from which it had sprung, and forming in itself a complete and uniform system almost without any foreign admixture. In this form the style was adopted by Humayun, and characterises all his buildings. Akbar, his son, seems to have had a singular predilection for Hindus and Hinduisms, and nowhere did he show this more than in his buildings, which present the most picturesque assemblages possible of Mahometan forms and exigencies carried out with Hindu feeling and Hindu richness and elegance of design. His two next successors, Jehangir and Shah Jehan, wholly abandoned this peculiar style, which they seem to have regarded as a retrograde step, and pursued the more legitimate path of art, reforming its details and improving the elegance of their designs. By these means their buildings, especially their mosques, became models of elegance and also of appropriateness. The purpose of every part was fully and distinctly expressed, and with a fitness not often found elsewhere in this style. Thus the principal side of their mosques is always an independent building, generally covered by three domes, of the bulb-like form which these monarchs first introduced into India, and is adorned with minarets. The side colonnades with their gateways, which have again become important buildings, are always kept in graceful subordination to the western mass, and the whole is so carefully studied and so elegantly ornamented, that it is frequently impossible to suggest an improvement. But with all this, I question much if almost every artist and many architects would not prefer the clumsy splendour of the Pathans, with all their rude but manly magnificence, to the refined but somewhat emasculated grace of the Moguls. My own feeling is entirely with the former; and even Akbar's works, picturesque though they are, seem more the result of caprice than the honest endeavours to attain beauty that mark those of the Pathans. Notwithstanding this, it seems more than doubtful if Cairo, or any western city, can boast of mosques so beautiful as those of Futtehpore |