to burst in the sun, that, even after you have touched it, and climbed to its summit, you almost doubt its reality. The four minarets which surround it are perfect no other epithet will describe them."

Our author's acquaintance with the Mohammedan monuments of other lands, has led him naturally to enter on a subject on which few writers have yet spoken; viz. the relation of Saracenic art in India to the same art in Egypt, Spain and Western Asia. Little indeed is known upon the subject, beyond the small circle of scholars who, like Mr. Fergusson, take an enthusiastic interest in every thing which can illustrate the science of architecture. The materials for exhibiting both the progress of the art in India, and its connection with Mohammedan art elsewhere, are abundant, and will, by the aid of photography, be rendered more generally available. Mr. Taylor thus speaks on the subject:

"We in America hear so little of these things, and even the accounts we get from English travellers are generally so confused and unsatisfactory, that the reader must pardon me, if in attempting the description, I lose myself in details. I thought the Alcazar of Seville and the Alhambra of Granada had already presented me with the purest types of Saracenic architecture, but I was mistaken. I found, in India, conceptions of Art far nobler, and embodiments far more successful. There is a Saracenic, as distinctly as there is a Greek and Gothic school of Art-not the inferior, but the equal of these.

"In comparing these masterpieces of architecture with the Moorish remains in Spain, which resemble them most nearly, I have been struck with the singular fact, that while, at the central seats of the Moslem Empire, art reached but a comparative degree of development, here, in India, and there, on the opposite and most distant frontiers, it attained a rapid and splendid culmination. The capitals of the Caliphs and the Sultans-Bagdad, Cairo, Damascus, and Constantinople-stand far below Agra and Delhi, Granada and Seville, in point of architecture, notwithstanding the latter cities have but few and scattered remains. It is not improbable that the Moorish architects, after the fall of Granada, gradually made their way to the eastward, and that their art was thus brought to India-or, at least, that they modified and improved the art then existing. The conquest of India by Baber, (grandson of Tamerlane and grandfather of Akbar) is almost coeval with the expulsion of the Moors from Granada."

Of the Jain architecture, with its singular domes and tall towers, so simply raised, so beautifully ornamented, and bearing such a close resemblance in structure to the Pelasgian remains of Mycena and Etruria, our author has not spoken. He came across but one specimen of it, in the elaborately carved cloisters near the Kuttub at Delhi, which were appropriated by the

earliest Pathan sovereigns for their magnificent mosque at that place. Neither has he noticed the special features of the Buddhist remains in various parts of India, especially the immense 'topes' or tumuli at Bhilsa and Sárnáth. It is scarcely possible to appreciate the early state of the arts in India, without knowing something of these interesting relics; and the reader who would push his enquiries in detail, will find an admirable guide in Fergusson's Illustrated Handbook of architecture, published two years ago. It is only in respect to Saracenic architecture in India, which he compares to similar architecture in Egypt and Spain, that he has made the observations quoted above. They are scarcely sufficient however to give a clear and complete view of the subject, or to enable the scholar on a visit to the North-west, to appreciate the true value of the ruins by which he is surrounded. We shall therefore add here a few observations.

Saracenic art, at length so complete and so beautiful in its own distinctive forms, started at first from other and older styles. In Egypt and in Spain, it took up the Roman forms of building which had hitherto prevailed. In Syria, and subsequently in Turkey, it adopted the Byzantine style, which it found in the Christian churches with which those countries were filled. In Persia, the Sassanian element appears in the oldest remains that are now found. But in India the Tartar conquerors adopted the Hindu style, especially the Jain, and mingled it with the Sassanian forms which they had found prevalent in Central Asia, the first seat of their conquests. All these various forms were seized and appropriated to the peculiar demands of Mohammedan worship. In the mosques, a covered space was required for prayer, the chief wall of which, ornamented by one or more niches, as Keblahs, should be placed towards Mecca. In front of this was placed an open court, with a verandah on one or more of its three sides. On the roof was placed a dome; and on the west, where the call to prayers was made by the human voice, minarets soon sprang up to make the muezzin more effective. This kind of arrangement seems to have prevailed everywhere in respect to mosques; though modified as to details. In regard to palaces and tombs, the Musalman style in different countries displays much wider differences, evidently derived from the habits and manners of the country, or people by whom they were erected. In this way there sprang up various branches of Saracenic art, the history and developments of which will well repay attentive examination. But as communication increased between the different countries of the Mohammedan world, the differences were to a considerable extent softened down, the foreign elements

disappeared, and the whole became fused into a style bearing the distinctive peculiarities of the Saracenic alone.

From the first there were adopted in the Saracenic style two or three elements, of which it has made special use. These are the dome, the pointed arch, minaret towers, and open arcades. The dome seems to have been a most ancient invention, being found among the remains both of the Pelasgians and the Jains. The Romans built domes upon drum-shaped buildings, and formed them of voussoirs, or sections of arches, such as are now adopted everywhere, strengthening the walls of their buildings (as of the Pantheon at Rome) by buttresses, and similar contrivances to counteract the immense lateral thrust. In the east, however, domes were everywhere built of level rings gradually contracted in width, just as English boys build oyster-shell grottoes and naturally became more pointed, than if built, like round arches, in true segments of a circle. The pointed arches seem to have become specially popular throughout the east and in Hindustan especially alternate only with the flat stone architraves, so common in the choultries of southern India. The open courts sprang from the necessity of tempering the heat, by abundance of air, and broad cool shade: promoted especially by fountains of water, bubbling over paved stone floors.

and

In Hindustan, the Mohammedan rule was from the first distinguished by one peculiarity. The Pathans and Moguls were a tomb-building race, and have expended upon their tombs all their resources both of money and of skill. The mosques palaces they have left behind, are comparatively few; but their tombs form an almost unbroken series, stretching from the times of Shahab-ud-din down to the present day. They display in continuous series the massive strength of the Pathan age, the graceful form and gorgeous finish of the best Mogul times, and the tawdry ornament which began to creep in with the first symptoms of Mogul decay. It is in them, therefore, that the peculiarities of the Indian form of Saracenic architecture most conspicuously appear.

The oldest buildings are the mosques and tombs near the Kuttub Minar at Delhi; the black mosque of Feroze at old Delhi; the mosques at Juanpore and Mandoo. All are characterized by that appearance of massive strength, by which the Pathan and Turk sovereigns were distinguished. The mosques all contain a considerable amount of Hindu architecture, and were built by Hindu architects. Besides the flattened dome, springing straight from its foundation, and the handsome arched way which forms the entrance to the building, the mosque at the Kuttub, and the mosque at Juanpore, have each an arcade built on the Hindu plan, and in the former case of Hindu materials. There seems

little doubt, that the very pillars, architraves and roofs of Jain temples, were taken down and re-built into the verandahs round the courts of mosques; and that in some cases, Jain buildings were taken as they stood, and merely altered by the removal of the centre pillars, and the walling in of the outside, in order to suit the demands and conditions of Mohammedan worship. In rare cases tombs also are found, consisting of a small Hindu pillared hall, supporting a dome instead of the usual flat roof. The Pathan mosques exhibit also another element, brought from Central Asia, and first found among the few monuments left by the Sassanian Kings of Persia. In building a round dome upon a square room, it is necessary to find some support for that portion of the dome, which crosses the corners. The Romans provided heavy buttresses rising from the ground: but in the Sassanian monuments, the corners are filled high up the walls by pendentives or brackets formed of arches, grouped together in the most ingenious way. Brackets of this kind, identical in shape with those of the Sassanian kings, are found in the small mosque near the Kuttub, the oldest of its class now found in Upper India. With such elements, combined in the grandest and most massive forms, Saracenic art was first introduced into India.

With the Mogul emperors, came in a higher degree of size and magnificence in ornament. The tomb of Humayun at old Delhi, the most prominent in that city of tombs which lies to the south of the fortress of Feroze, stands out at once in contrast to the small and contracted mausoleums, by which it is surrounded. It occupies the centre of a large garden, having a massive gateway in each of its four walls. It is a large building, raised on a platform, is two stories in height, has small chambers in each of its four corners, and the central octagonal hall is covered with an immense dome. Smaller domes or kiosks cluster round the chief dome, covered with a green enamel which has preserved its colour to this day. The building is of red sand. stone; having the bands around its chief entrances, inlaid with white marble. It is a striking monument, having considerable pretensions to beauty, and forms the starting point of a new era in tomb-building. The tomb of Akbar at Secundra, just out of Agra, is formed on the same model, but is in every way of larger size and more elaborate finish. Its garden is larger, its pavements wider, the gateways are higher, more massive, more elaborately inlaid with the white marble mosaics. The tomb itself is an immense building, with a lofty entrance, deep recesses on its lower story, numerous cupolas and kiosks, covered with green enamel on the upper story-and rising even to a third story: but without the usual dome. The third story is now entirely

white marble, erected in the chastest style, and is said to have been substituted by Shah Jehan for the story of red sandstone, which his grandfather had originally placed above the tomb. Though somewhat straggling, and dull, from the material of which it is chiefly composed, and though deficient in height as compared with its immense breadth, and the space over which it is spread, it is still one of the noblest monuments of the Mogul empire to be found in Upper India. The palaces of Akbar again are not in Saracenic style at all. Considering only the inner palace at Agra to be his, and the outer palace, harem and reception halls, as the work of Shah Jehan, the visitor will at once perceive that the style is purely Hindu: the pillars of the two halls are carved in Hindu fashion, are surmounted by the usual stone brackets with their pendent knobs, and are surmounted by the stone architrave which supports the roof. There are no domes, no pointed arches; every thing is Hindu and a counterpart of this palace can be found in a now deserted temple, built by Akbar's Hindu minister, in the sacred city of Brindabun. The mosque, palace, and other buildings, erected by Akbar at Futtehpore-Sikri, are, as we have seen, most interesting examples of the Saracenic style, as practised in his time.

The tomb of Ettima-ud-Dowlah, the minister of Jehangir, on the north side of the Jumna at Agra, exhibits a further advance in the progress of this architecture. The red sandstone, with its flowers and wreaths of white marble inlaid, is confined to the gateways. The garden is small, neatly laid out, and planted amongst other trees with the sombre cypress. The tomb is built entirely of white marble, with towers at the four corners. All the windows are filled with arabesque tracery of various forms, and the whole building is profusely covered, within and without, with Florentine mosaics, of wreaths and flowers, formed of bloodstones, jaspers and cornelians, inlaid into the marble. This style, in which the chief buildings were erected of the richest materials, and profusely inlaid, with the greatest taste, with these beautiful Florentine mosaics, is seen in its noblest and most perfect form in the Taj. It is seen also less perfectly in the palaces erected by Shah Jehan both in Agra and Delhi. The reception rooms, inlaid with mosiacs both on the walls and in the floor, the marble pavilions overlooking the river, the stately halls with the open arcade, on the side of which sat the king on his marble throne, distinguished the former. The noble hall, with its simple and elegant pillars, the edges, flutings and pedestals of which, with the panels of the roof, were covered with gold, while in the centre blazed the peacock throne, must have made the most gorgeous reception room for the courtiers and tributaries of a mighty monarch, which the world ever saw. The