[732] This Philistinism has its parallel in India. We believe it to be a fact that a Viceroy proposed the sale of the Tāj Mahāl at Agra to serve as a quarry for marble. The same Vandal had a vast number of seventeenth-century cannon at Allahabad broken up and disposed of as old metal. [733] Not, however, in 1323, as Schuyler asserts (i. p. 247), for he was not born till fourteen years afterwards. [734] M. Simakoff, a distinguished Russian archæologist, and the author of _Central Asian Art_, has arrived at the conclusion that the Persian ornamentation, which has hitherto been considered original, is but an imitation of that introduced by the Mongols into Central Asia. Moser, _A Travers l’Asie Centrale_, p. 118. [735] Three versts and 100 sajenes in circuit (Khanikoff, _Bokhara_, p. 131). [736] For a detailed account of this splendid feat of arms the reader is referred to Schuyler’s _Turkestan_, i. p. 224. [737] Schuyler gives a very brief biography of this excellent man at p. 267 of his _Turkestan_. Like Kurapatkine, he was equally great in war and in civil life, and of that very high type of officials produced only in the Panjāb and Turkestān. The earnestness and keen sympathy with the people which characterised Henry Lawrence, Montgomery, and Herbert Edwardes shine conspicuous in the “Chernaieff school,” so called from an illustrious soldier and statesman who inspired his lieutenants with his own devotion. His unmerited disgrace, which followed a display of splendid moral courage, and his old age spent in the cold shade of imperial neglect, are not the most creditable episodes in Central Asian annals. [738] Nestorius, a Syrian priest, became Patriarch of Constantinople in the fifth century; but his views as to Christ’s personality were declared heretical by a General Council held at Ephesus in 431. He was deposed from his high office, and his followers were driven from Europe. [739] Afrāsiyāb is synonymous in Persian legend for anything of extreme antiquity. [740] Moser was present when the Russian researches began. Every stroke of the spade, he says, revealed new treasures. Enamelled bricks of the finest designs, coins, a lamp like those exhumed at Pompeii, but covered with brilliant enamel, an urn splendidly adorned, and many other discoveries worthy to occupy a _savant_, were made in twenty-four hours (p. 116). [741] No attempt has yet been made to exploit these regions; but the Russian Government is ready and willing to encourage prospectors. An Englishman is now engaged in searching for the precious metals, and has met with every possible assistance from the authorities.