The second mosque, situated just outside the cross wall, is smaller, but of similar design. The portico is still perfect, the cups of the three ceilings being supported by pointed arches, resting on two columns with uncarved capitals. But this mosque is built throughout of stone, marbles of various hues being introduced. A legend in Persian verse above the doorway is to the effect that it was constructed by the Kazi, Mahmud, in A.H. 996 or A.D. 1587. Such is the kala or Ottoman fortress, and what it contains. The architecture, although careful, and, in the case of the mosques, pleasing, displays a distinct decline in the arts. The admirable traceries in stone of the so-called Seljuk buildings are nowhere to be found. Persian influences make themselves felt. We proceed from the kala in a south-westerly direction, on a course about parallel to the outline of the shore. The high ground, shelving to the water, is barren and stony. At a distance of nearly a mile we arrive at an isolated tomb, of which the site is a little headland of the coast, commanding the inner curves of the bay of Akhlat. It is the most beautiful of all the mausolea, in fact the only object of excelling beauty at Akhlat (No. 7, Fig. 182). It stands as a surpassing monument of Arab architecture, engrafted upon the Armenian style. Its masonry is fresh as upon the day when it was completed, six centuries ago. But the ruins of a companion building, which stood not far behind it, and which collapsed, according to my informant, about two years back, are ominous of a dissolution which is perhaps nearer than we might expect. I have therefore reproduced its features in a careful photograph, and have endeavoured to invest them with the hues of reality. I do not know that I need add much to the general description already given of similar edifices. But in this tomb all the merits of the style are seen to culminate;--in none do the proportions attain such exactitude, or the ornament such a combination of extraordinary elaboration with the simplicity and stateliness of the highest art. Tradition relates that these companion tombs are the burial-places of two brothers, and the work of a single architect. For the elder brother was designed the structure which has now fallen, and which is said to have been greatly inferior to that which stands. This individual lived to see the more finished monument erected, and to brood over the invidious contrast between his own and his brother's tomb. His anger was visited upon the daring architect, who was condemned to lose his right hand. The story sounds plausible, for there exists no personal inscription upon the beautiful tomb. We ignore the name of the personage for whom it was built. On the other hand the fallen structure possessed such an inscription, which our khoja had fortunately copied before it succumbed. It commemorates the great and noble Emir, Shadi Agha, son of the great Emir, Saughur Agha, son of Khaghan Agha. The date is A.H.