Bk. I. Ch. V. PERSIA. 553 their portals. By this means, in some of the French cathedrals, the appearance of a very large portal is obtained with only the requisite and convenient size of opening ; but in this they were far surpassed by the ai'chitects of the East, whose lofty and deeply-recessed portals, built on the same plan as the example here shown, are unrivalled for grandeur and appropriateness.^ "■'^ ■•■i5i,^^£-^»^J^'f°^?^S 986. View of Ruined Mosque at Tabreez. (From Texier's " Armenle et la Perse.") The mosque was destroyed by an earthquake in the beginning of the present century, but it seems to have been deserted long before that, owing to its having belonged to the Turkish sect of the Sunnites, while the Persians have during the last five centuries been devoted Shi-ites, or followers of the sect of Ali and his martyred sons. Tomb at Sultanieh (a.d. 1303-1316). Mahomed Khodabendah, the successor of Ghazan Khan, the builder of the mosque at Tabreez last described, founded the city of Sultanieh, and, like a true Tartar, his first care was to build himself a tonib^ 1 The earliest attempt in this direc- tion that I am acquainted with is the great portal of the palace at Mashita (Woodcut No. 266). '^ Texier, from whose work the illus- trations are taken, ascribes the building to another Khodabendah of the Sufi dynasty, A. d. 1577-8.5. Our knowledge, however, of the style is sufficient to show that the monument must be 200 or 300 years older than that king; and besides, the Sufis, not being Tartars, would not build tombs anywhere, much less in Sul- tanieh, where they never resided.
