Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/281

 CHAP. V. GUJARAT. 237 which the vegetable forms are conventionalised just to the extent required for the purpose. The equal spacing also of the subject by the three ordinary trees and four palms, takes it out of the category of direct imitation of nature, and renders it sufficiently structural for its situation ; but perhaps the greatest skill is shown in the even manner in which the pattern is spread over the whole surface. There are some exquisite specimens of 394. Window in SidijSayyid's Mosque at Ahmadabad. (From a Photograph by Colonel Biggs.) tracery in precious marbles at Agra and Delhi, but none quite equal to this. Above the roof of the mosques the minarets are always round towers slightly tapering, as in the mosque of Muhafiz Khan (Woodcut No. 393), relieved by galleries displaying great richness in the brackets which support them as well as in the balustrades which protect them. The tower always terminates in a conical top relieved by various disks. They are, so far as I know, the only minarets belonging to mosques which surpass those of Cairo in beauty of outline or richness of detail, excepting those of the Rani Sipari mosque, which are still more beautiful. Indeed, that mosque is the most exquisite gem at Ahmadabad,. both in plan and detail. It is without