the works of art which, in hopeless ruin, still excite the admiration of mankind. Their glories were soon obliterated by the uncouth Uzbegs; and 150 years ago the city site was a waste scored with mounds and caverns from which the ruined churches and colleges of a happier age soared heavenwards in desecrated majesty. It became a province of Bokhārā and the residence of the Amīrs during the summer heats, and commerce slowly revived. The story of the last wave of invasion which swept over Samarkand has already been told in these pages. Chief among the monuments of this war-worn city is the tomb of Tīmūr, spoken of throughout Central Asia as _Gūr Amīr_--the Amīr’s sepulchre, just as our fathers styled Wellington “the Duke.” It is approached through a double avenue of poplars, which terminates at a gateway ornamented with faience and flanked by ruined minarets. Behind these stands an octagonal structure with a deeply fluted dome. The entrance on the left of the tomb leads to a vaulted corridor, and then to a chamber 35 feet square, with a cupola 115 feet from the floor. On each side there is an arched recess with Alhambresque mouldings, and the walls are covered with six-sided plates of transparent gypsum. The interior is severely simple, as becomes the last resting-place of so great a man. “Only a stone,” whispered the dying emperor; “and my name upon it!” And so he rests beneath a block of dark-green jade--the largest in the world.[727] On the right of the conqueror’s memorial stone is one of grey marble commemorating his grandson Ulugh Beg, a distinguished astronomer, who compiled tables showing the position of the fixed stars, admitted to be the best which have come down to us from Mohammedan times. In the recess facing Mekka there hangs a large standard with a pendant of horse-hair, emblem of a militant faith; and between it and Tīmūr’s tomb is a grey marble slab dedicated to his friend and tutor, Mir Sayyid Barākā, for whom he built this mausoleum in 1386.[728] The recess in the east contains a slab of granite erected to a descendant of the Prophet, named Hājjī Imām `Umr. The central group of cenotaphs, numbering eight in all, is surrounded by a balustrade in fretwork of transparent gypsum. The actual tombs are in a crypt of exquisite proportions, which is reached by a flight of steps. Here lies all that is mortal of one whose empire extended from the Vistula to the China Seas, who in the brief intervals between his conquering expeditions found time to embellish his capital with structures which, even in their decay, rank among the wonders of the world. [Illustration: THE SHĪR DĀR MADRASA, SAMARKAND]