Page:The Seven Cities of Delhi.djvu/176

The Seven Cities of Delhi either side of the projecting "kiblah-gah," moreover, there are sloping towers of the style of the period of Firoze Shah. On the front of the mosque there is exceedingly effective decoration, containing such features as engrailed arches (like those at the Alai Gateway), Hindu drip-stones supported by brackets, and a combination of black and white stone, " sang mousa," and "sang marmar." The interior presents a variety in the corbelled pendentives, which is repeated in the great mosque of Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri. Altogether, this mosque shows a great advance in architecture, and yet we can trace the influence of earlier styles in attaining such a pleasing result. The mosque has only one dome remaining out of three. . — Close to the road which runs from Humayun's tomb to Safdar Jang's tomb,and not far from the village of Khairpur, stands a tomb which attracted the attention and admiration of Fergusson, the writer of a standard work on architecture. It contains the remains of the third king of the Sayyad dynasty, who died in 1445. The shape is octagonal, with an exterior arcade, the columns of which contain massive grey monoliths, such as are characteristic of the period of Firoze Shah. 128