The religion and the art of Islam seem destined to live and die together. Nothing (with the one exception of the suggestion of the pointed arch to Western Europe at the very moment when Romanesque art was ripe for a change) has developed itself or appears likely to grow out of Mohammedan architecture in any part of the wide field to which the attention of the reader has been directed; and in this respect the art of the Mohammedan is as exclusive, as intolerant, and as infertile as his religion. The interest which it must possess in the eyes of a Western student will rise less from its own charms than from the fact that it first employed the pointed arch--that feature from which sprang the glorious series of Western Christian styles to which we give the name of Gothic. This arch, indeed, appears to have been discovered by the very beginners of Mohammedan architecture, at a time when the style was still plastic and in course of growth, and the beauty of Saracenic art is due to no small extent to the use of it; but in the employment of this feature the Western architect advanced much further than the Saracen even at his best could go. The pointed architecture of the Middle Ages, with its daring construction, its comprehensive design, its elaborate mouldings, and its magnificent sculptures, is far more highly developed and more beautiful than that of the countries which we have been describing, though in its treatment of the walls it cannot surpass, and indeed did not often equal, the unrivalled decoration of plane surfaces which forms the chief glory of Mohammedan art. [Illustration: FIG. 195.--ENTRANCE TO A MOORISH BAZAAR.] FOOTNOTES: [37] The First Crusade lasted from A.D. 1095 to A.D. 1099. [38] 'Gothic and Renaissance Architecture,' p. 141. INDEX. Abbaye aux Dames, Caen, 231 " Hommes, Caen, 230 Abbey, Westminster, 204 Agora, 114 Alhambra, 258, 263 Amphitheatre at Arles, 161 " Nîmes, 161 " Pola, 161 " Rome (Coloss.), 158 " Sutri, 148 " Verona, 161 Anthemios of Thralles, _Architect_, 211 Appian Way, 145 Apollodorus of Damascus, _Architect_, 155 Aqueduct at Nîmes (Pont du Gard), 171 " from Præneste to Rome, 145 " at Rome (Aqua Claudia), 171 " " (Anio Novus), 171 " at Segovia, 171 " at Tarragona, 171 Arch at Autun (Porte d'Arroux), 172 " Jerusalem (Golden Gate), 220 " Rome (of Constantine), 172 " " (of the Goldsmiths), 173 " " (of Sept. Severus), 172 " " (of Titus), 172 " Trèves (Porta Nigra), 172 Asoka, 65 Baalbek, ruins at, 149 Basilica at Rome (Constantiniana), 155 " " (Emilia), 154 " " (Julia), 155 " " (Portia), 154 " " (Sempronia), 155 " " (Ulpia), 155 " Trèves, 155