Page:The Architecture of Ancient Delhi Especially the Buildings Around the Kutb Minar 1872 by Henry Hardy Cole.djvu/187

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THE Pathans have left a large number of tombs scattered around Delhi, the forms of which are strangely characteristic of the stern and uncompromising qualities of the builders, when they had ceased to be so largely influenced by the Hindu methods of ornamentation which, during the early period of conquest, were so much intermingled with their own styles. The common form of these tombs consists of a square or an octagonal chamber with a dome surrounded by a verandah, each side having three openings with pointed arches. In the early examples the domes and arches were flat or rather depressed ; the tendency to become stilted and of less robust Pathan Tombs outline being greater with the approach to the period of the Mogul rulers. The Pathan style of later date introduced a greater degree of elaboration ; the tombs and mosques were made more ornamental, frequently being covered with elaborate marblework and with coloured tiles of great beauty both in respect of colour and design. These coloured tiles produce a very pleasing and agreeable relief to the sombre colour of the stone, and add a bright and crisp quality of light and colour to the buildings which they adorn. Blue and yellow glazed tiles are those most frequently used in the exteriors, and are sometimes treated like mosaics, the patterns being cut out in one coloured tile, and filled up by a tile of a second colour. In the tomb of Adam Khan we have a specimen of architecture built during the reign of a Mogul ruler in which, however, the then not unforgotten style of the Pathans has been adhered to. The plan consists of an octagonal chamber of fifty feet diameter, surrounded by a verandah. The eight openings into the inner chamber are now blocked up, in order to render the building habitable for the civil authorities, who find it necessary to visit the locality in their tours of inspection and duty in the Delhi District. These Rh