no peculiarity of design or construction characteristic of Western methods in any Indian buildings of the sixteenth or seventeenth century. If Western craftsmen had taken a leading part in the design of any Mogul buildings, they would certainly have left more tangible evidence of their handiwork than "grandeur of proportions."
The most conspicuous mark of foreign influence in Mogul building first appears in the tomb of Humāyūn (Pl. XLII, b), built early in Akbar's reign when the government was in the hands of Humāyūn's devoted friend and general, Bairām Khan. Humāyūn had won back his throne, from which he had been driven by Shēr Shah, with the help of a Persian army. Akbar's mother was Persian, and there is no doubt that Persian craftsmen had a voice in the design of Humāyūn's mausoleum, though white marble and red sandstone are used as facing materials instead of enamelled tiles. But Humāyūn's court fashions only had a detrimental effect upon the Indian masonic tradition which had found such noble expression in his Afghan rival's tomb at Sahserām a few years before (Pl. XLII, a). The two monuments reveal the character of the men whose remains they cover. Humāyūn's pompous but uninspired monument shows the "grand seigneur," if somewhat shallow and capricious, a brave fighter and charming companion, but incapable as a ruler of men; Shēr Shah's, the stateliest of funeral monuments, a monarch strong both in war and in peace, a strategist and organiser, iron-fisted and unscrupulous, but a ruler of great constructive ability.
When Akbar had grown to manhood and thrown off the tulelage of his Afghan guardian, Bairām Khan, he also took a keen interest in building, and left the
