Gur-Amir, the tomb of Timur. This consists of a chapel crowned with a dome, enclosed by a wall and fronted by an archway. Time and earthquakes have greatly injured this fine building. The interior walls are covered with elegant turquoise arabesques and inscriptions in gold. The citadel (reconstructed in 1882 and preceding years) is situated on a hill whose steep slopes render it one of the strongest in Central Asia. Its walls, 3000 yds. in circuit and about 10 ft. high, enclose a space of about 90 acres. Within it are the palace of the amir of Bokhara—a vulgar modern building now a hospital—and the audience hall of Timur—a long narrow court, surrounded by a colonnade, and containing the kok-tash, or stone of justice. Ruins of former buildings—heaps of plain and enamelled bricks, among which Graeco-Bactrian coins have been found—occur over a wide area round the present city, especially on the W. and N. The name of Aphrosiab is usually given to these ruins. Five m. S.W. of Samarkand is the college Khoja Akrar; its floral ornamentation in enamelled brick is one of the most beautiful in Samarkand. Nothing but the ruins of a palace now mark the site of a once famous garden, Baghchi-sarai. Of the Graeco-Armenian library said to have been brought to Samarkand by Timur no traces have been discovered, and Vambéry regards the legend as invented by the Armenians. Every trace of the renowned high school Kalinder-khaneh has also disappeared.
The present Moslem city is an intricate labyrinth of narrow, winding streets, bordered by dirty courtyards and miserable houses. The chief occupation of the inhabitants is gardening. There is a certain amount of industry in metallic wares, tallow and soap, tanneries, potteries, various tissues, dyeing, harness, boots and silver and gold wares. The best harness, ornamented with turquoises, and the finer products of the goldsmith’s art, are imported from Bokhara and Afghanistan. The products of the local potteries are very fine. The bazaars of Samarkand are more animated and kept with much greater cleanliness than those of Tashkent and Namangan. The trade is very brisk, the chief items being cotton, silk, wheat and rice, horses, asses, fruits and cutlery. Wheat, rice and silk are exported chiefly to Bokhara; cotton to Russia, via Tashkent. Silk wares and excellent fruits are imported from Bokhara, and rock-salt from Hissar. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
SAMBALPUR, a town and district of British India, in the
Orissa division of Bengal. The town is on the left bank of the
river Mahanadi, 495 ft. above sea-level, the terminus of a branch
of the Bengal-Nagpur railway. Pop. (1901) 12,870. It contains
a ruined fort with old temples. The garrison of native infantry
was withdrawn in 1902. There is considerable trade, and hand weaving
of tussore silk and cotton cloth are carried on.
The District of Sambalpur has an area of 3773 sq. m. The Mahanadi, which is the only important river, divides it into unequal parts. The greater portion is an undulating plain, with ranges of rugged hills running in every direction, the largest of which is the Bara Pahar, covering an area of 350 sq. m., and attaining at Debrigarh a height of 2267 ft. above the plain. The Mahanadi affords means of water communication for 90 m.; its principal tributaries in Sambalpur are the Ib, Kelo and Jhira. To the W. of the Mahanadi the district is well cultivated. The soil is generally light and sandy. It is occupied for the greater part by crystalline metamorphic rocks; but part of the N.W. corner is composed of sandstone, limestone and shale. Gold dust and diamonds have been found near Hirakhuda or Diamond Island, at the junction of the Ib and Mahanadi. The climate of Sambalpur is considered very unhealthy; the annual rainfall averages 59 in. The population in 1901 was 640,243, showing an increase of 3.2% in the decade. The registered death-rate for 1897 was only 30 per thousand, as against 68 for the province generally. This figure shows that Sambalpur entirely escaped the famine of 1896–1897, which indeed can be said to have brought prosperity to the district by causing high prices for a good rice crop, rice being the staple of cultivation. It was almost equally fortunate in 1900. The main line of the Bengal-Nagpur railway runs along the N. border of the district, with a branch S. to Sambalpur town.
Sambalpur lapsed to the British in 1849, and was attached to Bengal until 1862, when it was transferred to the Central Provinces. The early revenue administration was not successful. On the outbreak of the Mutiny in 1857 a general rising of the chiefs took place, and it was not until the final arrest of Surandra Sa, in 1864, that tranquillity was restored. In October 1905 Sambalpur was transferred back again to Bengal, without the subdivisions of Phuljhar and Chandarpur-Padarnpur.
See Sambalpur District Gazetteer (Calcutta, 1909).
SAMBHAR LAKE, a salt lake in Rajputana, India, on the
borders of the two states of ]odhpur and Jaipur. The town of
the same name has a railway station 53 m. N.E. from Ajmer:
pop. (1901) 10,873. The area of the lake when full is about
90 sq. m., but it usually dries up altogether in the hot season.
Since 1870 the British government has worked the salt under a
lease from the two states interested, supplying great part of N.
and Central India. The annual output averages about 126,000
tons, yielding a profit of more than half a million sterling.
SAMBLANÇAY, or Semblançay, a French noble family of Touraine, sprung from the merchant class. The founder of the family was Jean de Beaune (d. c. 1489), treasurer of Louis XI., who narrowly escaped death for conspiracy under Charles VIII. His son, Jacques de Beaune, baron de Samblancay, vicomte
de Tours, became general of finances before 1497, and from 1518 was superintendent of finances. Convicted of peculation in connexion with the supplies for the army in Italy, he was executed at Montfaucon on the 9th of August 1527. His eldest son, Martin de Beaune, who became archbishop of Tours in 1520, died in the same year as his father. Another son, Guillaume de Beaune, general of finances under his father, and banished from 1527 to 1535, was the father of the famous prelate, Renaud de Beaume (1527–1606), archbishop of Bourges (1581) and of Sens (1595). His efforts at pacification during the wars of religion culminated in the conversion of Henry IV., and it was he who presided at the ceremony of the king’s abjuration of Protestantism on the 25th of July 1593. Renaud was one of the most famous orators of his time, and some of his productions have come down to us, as well as his Réformation de l'université de Paris (1605 and 1667). A less honourable descendant of Jacques de Beaune was Charlotte de Beaune-Samblançay (c.1550–1617), a courtesan whom Catherine de Medici employed to discover the secrets of her courtly enemies. She counted among her lovers and dupes the king of Navarre (Henry IV.),
the duc d’Alençon (Henry III.), Henry I., duc de Guise and others. The duc de Guise was killed when leaving her apartments in the early morning of Christmas Day 1588. She was married early in life to Simon de Fizes, baron de Sauves, a secretary of state, and aga.in in 1584 to Francois de la Trémoille, marquis de Noirmoutiers, by whom she had a son, Louis, 1st duc de Noirmoutiers, a ducal line which became extinct in 1733. Charlotte died on the 30th of September 1617.
SAMBOURNE, EDWARD LINLEY (1844–1910), English
draughtsman, illustrator and designer, was born in London,
on the 4th of January 1844. He was educated at the City of
London School, and also received a few months' education
at the South Kensington School of Art. After a six years'
“ gentleman apprenticeship ” with John Penn & Son, marine
engineers, Greenwich, his humorous and fanciful sketches made
surreptitiously in the drawing-office of that firm were shown
to Mark Lemon, editor of Punch, and at once secured him an
invitation to draw for that journal. In April 1867 appeared his
first sketch, “ Pros and Cons,” and from that time his work was
regularly seen, with rare exceptions, in the weekly pages of
Punch. In 1871 he was called to the Punch “ table.” At the
beginning he made his name by his “ social ” drawings and
especially by his highly elaborated initial letters. He drew his
first political cartoon, properly so-called, in 1884, and ten years
later began regularly to design the weekly second cartoon,
following Sir John Tenniel as chief cartoonist in 1901. Examples
of his best work in book illustration are in Sir F. C. Burnand's
New Sandford and Merton (1872), and in Charles Kingsley's
Water Babies (1885), which contains some of his most delicate
