urges the priests to convert all, including even his own queens and women. He also records the planting of trees on all roads, the digging of wells at every mile, and the erection of sarals, for the benefit of travellers. Curiously enough, many subsequent kings take to themselves the credit for similar acts.
Jama Masjid. — This stands close to the pillar, and Is said to have been connected to the building on which the latter stands by a bridge. The unevenness of the ground caused the builders of the mosque to make a lower story beneath the mosque. The gateway is on the north side, for the river was then so close that an entrance from the eastern side was difficult ; access was also given by staircases from the lower story.
TImur was much struck by the beauty of this mosque when he saw it in 1398, twenty years after it was built. He carried away with him a number of masons, and erected afterwards, in Samarcand, a mosque which was adapted from the design of this one. It had four hundred and eighty pillars of hewn stone, with vaulted roofs, and at each corner there was a lofty minaret ; the doors were of brass, and the walls and domes were decorated with inscriptions, including the eighteenth chapter of the Koran.
