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Rani Pokhri (Queen's Pool), the large square tank east of Asan, is older than it looks. It was built in the seventeenth century by King Pratap Malla to console his queen after the death of their favourite son; the shrine in the middle, which is opened one day a year during the Tihaar festival, is more recent. The pavements around the pool and nearby Ratna Park are active centres for small-time trade (including prostitution). West of Rani Pokhri stands the mouldering edifice of Durbar High School (now renamed after the Nepali poet Bhanu Bhakta Acharya), established in 1853 to educate the children of the Rana aristocracy and their hangers-on for jobs in a nascent bureaucracy. To the east rise the turn-of-the-century Ghanta Ghar (clocktower) - like Bhimsen Tower, a landmark only in the functional sense - and Kathmandu's two mosques . Muslims first settled in Kathmandu as traders five centuries ago, and now represent only a tiny fraction of Nepal's half-million "Musalmans". Nearby Tri-Chandra College, whose students have a reputation for militancy, was a flashpoint of anti-government riots in 1990, when its walls were painted with such slogans as "Do or Die for Democracy".
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