But Tamerlane was so afraid lest cupidity should cause his tomb to be rifled that he ordered his body to be buried in a crypt below the other tomb, the existence of which was until quite recently unknown, except to a few initiated persons. The entrance, which was concealed by a paving stone, is now open to the gaze of all. We went down into it by a flight of steep stone steps and found a number of tombs, one of which was the hero’s, made of specially finely carved marble. We were invited to pay a small sum in order to place candles on it, so I presume our respectful attitude had won us the reputation of being good Moslems. The vaulted roof of this crypt was admirably designed brickwork, of which the rough sketch opposite may give an idea. It was a twelve-sided figure, and the whole of the interior was in excellent repair. It was dimly lighted by a torch, which our guide produced, and we were glad to escape promptly back to the upper air, where I sat down to sketch. Various worshippers came in and out to say their prayers, for the worship of saints is a marked characteristic of Mohammedanism, and there are many shrines in Samarkand. Every one seemed friendly and devout, except an obvious tourist with his guide, who certainly disturbed the serenity of the atmosphere. Another day I sketched the outside of that wonderful mausoleum, and day by day as we studied the monuments which time has defaced, but which even in decay surpass all others in their potent effect upon the imagination, I dreamed of the genius which had left such an imperishable memory. Surely none of the other conquerors of the world was ever so strange a mixture as the great Mogul, compounded of ambition, lust of power, love of beauty, relentless cruelty, domestic affection, and zeal for “the Faith.” [Illustration] Timur i Leng, the lame Timur, or Tamerlane (to use the vulgarised form of his name), was born at Shahr-i-Sabz, “the green city,” about fifty miles south of Samarkand, in 1336. His father, Teragai, had been the first ruler in the country converted to Islamism, and he brought up his son Tamerlane in the studious retirement which he himself loved. The young man was well versed in the knowledge of the Koran, but he was noted also for his good horsemanship and other manly pursuits. Tamerlane soon abandoned his father’s way of life and reverted to the earlier type of Genghiz Khan and Kubla Khan. The accounts of the Mongol raids sound like visions of the lowest hell, beside which Dante’s descriptions are colourless; these raids are inconceivable to the modern mind, and yet history shows that they were not the work of madmen, but that they are due to a strain of ferocious brutality in the Mongol blood. Where this happens to be combined with great power or genius, as in the case of Ivan the Terrible, or Tamerlane, the result is appalling.