At a distance from those, and near the Dervaze Bokhara, are the extensive ruins of the once really magnificent Medresse Hanym, which a Chinese princess, wife of Timour, erected out of her private purse. It is said at one time to have accommodated a thousand students, each of whom received from the Vakf (foundation) the annual sum of a hundred Tilla. The sum may be regarded as an Oriental one; an evidence, nevertheless, of bygone splendour appears in its ruins, of which three walls and the fore-front or frontispiece (Pishtak) still exist; the latter with its towers and portal, that might serve for a model, has its pavement completely covered with mosaic made of earth, the composition and colouring of which are of incomparable beauty, and so firmly cemented that it occasioned me indescribable trouble to cut away the calyx of a flower; and even of this I could only remove in a perfect state the innermost part, with three leaves folded together. Although the work of destruction is eagerly proceeded with, we can still perceive in the interior where at present the hired carriages that ply to Khokand and Karshi take up their quarters--the mosque, with the wonder-working gigantic Rahle; and many a century must the people of Samarcand {212} continue to tear away and cut down before this work of annihilation is complete. [Greek Armenian Library not, as pretended, carried off by Timour.] Besides these edifices, there are some other towers and dome-shaped buildings, the work of bygone days. After having made every possible investigation, in spite of all exertions, I have not been able to discover any trace of that once famous Armenian Greek library, which, according to a universally accredited tradition, the victorious Timour swept away to Samarcand to ornament his capital. This fable, so I must at once pronounce it, originated from the over-strained patriotism of an Armenian priest, named Hadjator, who insists that he came from Caboul to Samarcand, and discovered in the latter city large folios with heavy chains (_à la_ Faust) in those towers, into which no Musselman, from fear of Djins (Genii), would dare to venture. The story was later, if I mistake not, made use of by a French _savant_, in his 'History of the Armenians;' and as we Europeans are just as fond as the Orientals of amusing ourselves with subjects that lie half in light and half in darkness, it was actually believed by some (that is, by those who busied themselves with antiquities) that the mighty Asiatic conqueror had sent back to his capital, a distance of a hundred stations, some hundred mules laden with Armenian Greek manuscripts, in order that his Tartars might also familiarise themselves with foreign languages and history! [Architecture of Public Buildings not Chinese but Persian; Modern Samarcand; Its Population]