An architecture of stone dominates the high mountains of the Duab. Nowhere is there so much rock-hewn art overruling the vaults of ice and basins of snow; nowhere has so much been saved on the white lace and shining embroidery which drapes the Alps. The angular nakedness of stone lifts itself proudly to heights undreamt of. With the weight of Babylonian heaviness is mated the reckless daring of the Gothic style. Here we think again of the old problem of all masters, that ever stands before them as they build. How do I raise an unshakable fastness, and then, how do I lighten it by beauty, but finally, how can 1 endow the seeming flimsiness with a strength that convinces the eye? Necessity and joy, pressure and ease, how do I unite them? How can I combine the power of props and braces with the cowardice of vision? Men ask me to weld into beautiful symphonies of reality the two eternal elements of heaven and earth! Where is the golden mean that ever satisfies? Such may be the musings of one who lets his view sweep from the summits of Hazratsultan to Timur's avenues.

Where the mountains, whence issues the all-generating Zarafshan, overshadow the plain, there lies Samarkand, the queen of the world, like a lovely woman reclining on her couch; she who is mother and child, in whom are conception and birth. Beside her verdant bower the mountains stand with a paternity protecting and austere, while near her lies the untouched steppe. To them she is fulfilment and a promise, she the ever-youthful, beatific, and crowned with the glory of Tamerlane.