Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/326

 2 8o INDIAN SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE. BOOK VII. us, was a great builder, the country being then in a very flourish- ing condition ; and his son, Muhammad Quit, founded Bagnagar now Haidar^bad, the Nizam's capital. The tombs of the kings of this dynasty, and of their nobles and families here, form as extensive and as picturesque a group as is to be found any- where ; they are just outside the walls, to the north-west of the city, and are not unworthy of a place in history if the materials were available for illustrating them properly. They stand on a slightly raised site, each in the centre of a large quadrangular terrace, and had each a small mosque or musalld attached. The tomb of Muhammad Quit Qutb, erected about 1625, one of the largest and finest, is an imposing structure, with a fine frieze over the main storey. It was once ornamented with coloured tiles and excited the admiration of Thevenot who visited and described it in 1667. Among others of pleasing proportions is that of Abdulla Qutb Shah the sixth king (1625-1672) with rich parapets and cornices round the principal and upper storeys. Near by is the tomb of his mother, Haiyat Bakhsh Begam, who died in 1617 : it is about 65 ft. square, and structurally is of the style of her son's. Several of these tombs were repaired by the late Sir Salar Jang. There are also on the outskirts of the city other mausolea of the nobles of the court, in various architectural styles; of these Plate XXXI. illustrates two examples. But until the group has been drawn and intelligently described in some detail we can hardly estimate their merits, which we know generally to be considerable. SlNDH. Among the minor styles of Muhammadan art in India there is one that would be singularly interesting in a historical sense if a sufficient number of examples existed to elucidate it, and they were of sufficient antiquity to connect the style with those of the West. From its situation, almost outside India, the province of Sindh must always have had a certain affinity with Persia and the countries lying to the westward of the Indus, and if we knew its architectural history we might probably be able to trace to their source many of the forms we cannot now explain, and join the styles of the East with those of the West in a manner we cannot at present pretend to accomplish. The buildings in this province were nearly always in brick, stone being scarce ; and though they are not exposed to the destructive agencies of vegetation like those of Bengal, the mortar is bad, and salt in the soil rises and disintegrates the bricks, which are easily picked out and utilised by the natives to build their huts or villages.