Page:The Architecture of Ancient Delhi Especially the Buildings Around the Kutb Minar 1872 by Henry Hardy Cole.djvu/141

 Shams-ud-diris Gateways and Tomb. 97 Photograph XV. SOUTH-WEST GATEWAY. Note. — The white marks on the left centre pier of the Gate indicate a scale of five feet, measured against the wall. REFERRING to Plan No. II. it will be seen that a roadway passes through the central doorway (E) to the village of Mihroli. The view here photo- graphed is taken from a point in the centre of the said roadway, looking towards the village. No traces are left of the rear wall which closed in the back, as the Plan leads me to infer, as it does in the case of the central building of Kutb-ud-din (G), and of the Gate similar to the one here represented and situated to the north (see Photo- graph XVI.). Like the latter structure, the openings in this range numbered originally five — of which three alone are still to be seen — but the dimensions were the same, and the ornamental treatment and construction precisely similar in each one. On each side of the central opening of this S. W. Gateway and rising above the niches, is a broad band of geometric pattern, unlike in all points the broad scroll-work which exists on the Gateway of the Central Mosque. The side arches, the curves of which were covered by Arabic inscriptions, measured about thirty-five feet in height, and the central arch was about fifty feet high. When Shams-ud-din's two additional Gates (E and F) were in perfect condition, the whole seventeen arches, which included Kutb-ud-din's central range (H), must have presented a very fine and grand appearance. The admirable freedom and grace of the ornamental arabesques and inscriptions which cover the whole surface of the stonework are such excellent examples of this style of art, that I speedily selected a small and uninjured portion for reproduction in plaster, and the facsimile of a piece on the left of the centre arch including a