The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-03-25

most of all was Alum-G Conquer on of the World" He modestly conee- ded, however, that he had really con quered but three-tlfths of the world, and In token thereof he was accus- toned to tear off the corner of every sheet of paper on which he wrote. His mosque is so far exceeded by the splen~ dors of the Tai Mahal, his fathers mausoleum, that the two are hardly to be compared but it is nevertheless, q noble structure, and the pride of Aur- ungabad, where it forms the principal attraction.
 There are many mortuary mosques in the east, for rich emperors, sultans and rajahs were fond of building these structures to the memory of those they loved. but mortuary Hindoo temple IS comparatively rare, Such a one, how ever, is found in the renowned Golden
 Temple of Amritsur, which, according
 to tradition, was built by an old Italian emperor to fulfill VOW that if his fa- vorlte wife recovered from illness he
 would build the most beautiful temple In India. She recovered, he carried out
 his promise, and the Golden House is
 the result.
 Christian churches built to fulfill a
 VOW, or as monuments to buried love, are common all over Europe, but
 among the most noted of this class is
 the Church of St, Stephen, or, as the
 French call 1t, St. Etienne, at Caen William the Conqueror and Matilda
 his queen, determined to found at Caen two churches in memory of each other
 so the former built St. Stephen, and the
 latter erected not far away the Ab- | baye aux Femmes, now the Church of
 St. Trinite. The former edifice is noted 1 in history as the burial place of the
 Conqueror, who, though the greatest | king of his time, was inferred like a
 dog. Hurt by fall of his horse, as soon as the attendants saw he was dy- | ing, they left him. to go and plunder the royal palace and baggage, and the
 king died alone. After he was dead, a camp follower stole the bed covering and the kings clothing, and the nude body of the monarch lay neglected for l two days, when some monks came and took it away for Christian burial. At the church dispute arose among the l knights who came to attend the fune- ral. and the burial was delayed for a | little time, then an alarm was given of the approaching enemy The impa- | tient men-at- arms threw the body into | the grave, but the opening was too small for the swollen corpse! one jumped on it to force it down, when the body burst, and in horror and disgust all the attendants fled from the church. The interment was completed by the | monks, and thus was the conqueror
 buried. It was a gruesome ending to q
 glorious career, but hardly more so than that of many other potentates of
 that barbarous age A tragedy almost
 equal in horror is narrated of the Gi-
 ralda Tower, in Seville, which was built | as the minaret to the chief mosque. | Projected by a Moorish caliph as me
 morial to his dead father. when the tower approached completion he was so delighted with it. and so fearful that l the architect might surpass it by an- other erected elsewhere, that he had
 the unlucky designer put to death, and
 buried in a vault at it's base. Queer re- wards were there for genius in those days, but such stories, and even worse,