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219 At the north of the town, in a grove of umbrella pines, lies the Gaz-ir-Gah Sharif, the resting place of Hazrat Khwaja Abdullah Ansar, a well-known Muslim divine and Sofi-poet. The shrine is distinguishable from afar by a huge lofty square-topped mass of building over a high arch. This shrine is well worth a visit, for it displays the art of glazed tiles of all possible shades and patterns, all of them gorgeous and yet full of delicate taste. The great aiwan, tiled from top to bottom, shows traces of Chinese influence in the arrangement of Kufi characters. Timurlane (Tamerlane) died before he could begin the conquest of China, but the craftsmen he attracted from China to Samar-kand have had a great influence in certain manifestations of Timurid art—miniature painting in particular. Among the many beautiful carved tombstones of the courtyard one notices a great rectangular blockstone. This is the tomb of Shah Rukh, carved in the intricate flower pattern, peculiar to the Herat School, in the style called Haft-Qalam, which means that the stone is carved on seven different planes. But the jewel of Herat is the Mussalla, a group of beautiful buildings outside the city, now in ruins. It consisted of three buildings running north-east and south-west, and covering a distance of six hundred yards from end to end. Of the eastern building, known generally as the Madressah or College, nothing but four minarets remain. The arches, covered with the remains of what once was fine tile work of the most beautiful and artistic design, are now much defaced. The tiles on the minarets, too, have mostly been worn off by the vagaries of weather, but inside the arches the beautiful mosaic work is still in many places almost perfect sufficient to give an idea of the splendour of the building when new. The minarets of the Madressah are taller than the rest, and are about 150 feet in height. Up to the late