CHAP. VIII.
PERSEPOLIS TO ISPAHAN.

Jan. 17. As we were quitting the environs of Persepolis, and proceeding towards Ispahan, we saw on an eminence on the left of the road (which now bore north-westerly) a single column erect, and some fragments of stones and masonry adjoining. They were situated in the centre of an extensive spot, which, from the configuration of the land around, in elevated terraces and mounds, appeared an artificial enclosure: and, as my Persian companion hinted, might be the site of a fortification or a castle. The wall, indeed, in many parts could be traced on the summit of the mounds. On arriving at the ruins, I discovered them to consist of a solitary pillar, with a double-headed sphinx for its capital, besides, strewed on the ground, a great quantity of shafts, bases, and capitals of the same dimensions as the upright column, and all, together with it, of the same description as those at Persepolis. Several large blocks are arranged about, as the fragments of some building. The column is fluted like the Doric, but with lines more closely connected: it is one foot eight inches in diameter at the bottom, and six inches less at the top: the height is a little above seventeen feet; and the base, including a tore next the shaft, is two feet more. The legs and bodies of the sphinxes are in two separate blocks. The largest of the adjacent blocks erect is seven feet two inches broad, and eleven feet eight inches high. Nakshi Rustam bore N. 50. W. from this place. A little further on is the ruin of a large pillar not fluted, and the fragments of a sphinx which certainly had been the capital. These remains, according to my companion’s tradition, were the site of Jemsheed’s harem.

We returned to the road which led through a dilapidated but massy gate, situated at the extremity of the projecting foot of the mountains. In the centre of the road are three stones; that in the middle is a broken column, and the two between which it stands are of a columnar form. It has, probably, been a beautiful object. The rocks to the left (a marble of the same kind as that at Nakshi Rustam) bear evident marks of having been worked and excavated. The road led us over a soil, as fine as that of the plain of Merdasht, watered by the Rood Khonéh Sewund. Having reached the extremity of that range, on the Western point of which are the sculptures of Nakshi Rustam, we turned to the left at a village called Seidoun. At the foot of an abrupt part of the mountain on the right, but still at a considerable ascent from the plain, is situated the village of Sewund. Our encampment was below, near the banks of the stream of that name. The snipes, ducks, herons, and bitterns from these quarters made an admirable addition to the luxury of our table. The march of this day was called three fursungs, which we computed at thirteen miles.

18th. We continued our journey along the banks with a North wind fresh in our faces, and crossed the river about half a mile from our encampment. We then turned an abrupt promontory of the high land on the right, and, for the remainder of the march, travelled nearly due East, between mountains whose brown and arid sides presented nothing to cheer or enliven the way. As we approached Kemeen (a distance of fifteen miles from Sewund) we were greeted by all the inhabitants of the village, who exhausted their whole ingenuity to do honour to the Envoy. They fired frequent vollies, created an immense dust, broke vases of sugar, beat drums, blew trumpets, and themselves made loud and shrill shrieks. In return for all this, handfuls of money were thrown among them. Among the many performers was a lad who preceded us, twirling a stick about with great agility between his fingers; in this exercise he persevered so intently, regardless of all the pressure of the animals and the crowd, that at length the nose of the Envoy’s horse received the full force of his art. The Derveish of the Hafizeea overtook us here to ask the present which had been promised to him. As he had been empowered to receive it at Shiraz, the Envoy conceived that his errand was a fraud, and dismissed him therefore, paying his expences back, with an order for the sum if it should not have been already paid.

19th. An easterly breeze, which sprung up this morning, rendered it extremely cold, and depressed the thermometer to 30°. We travelled between the bases of two abrupt chains of mountains, for about two miles against the wind; when we took a sudden direction to the North, in which we continued generally until we came to Moorgh-aub, a distance of fourteen miles, according to our reckoning. The pass through the mountains, in a military point of view, presents most admirable means of impeding the progress of an enemy. At the distance of two miles from Moorgh-aub, I turned on the left from the road, to examine some ruins which I had noticed. Proceeding over the ploughed fields, which nearly overspread the whole of this plain, I came to the bed of a river lying in a North and South direction, and on its banks a village called Meshed Omoun. There is here a fort, and a few low houses, in which females only were left, as all the men had gone out to greet the Envoy, by the discharge of their matchlocks. About a mile further are situated the collective ruins, called by the people of the country Mesjid Madré Suleiman, the tomb of the mother of Solomon. The first object is a pillar erect, a plain shaft without a capital ten feet five inches in circumference. Near it are three pilasters, the fronts of which are excavated in deep niches, and the sides inscribed with the following characters. (See plate XXIX.) From the pieces of masonry around, the pilasters appeared to have enclosed a hall; the interior of which was decorated with columns, but I resigned the hope of ascertaining the plan of its original form, when I saw two similar masses; one, at the distance of one hundred and fifty yards, with a corresponding inscription; and the intermediate space (and indeed the whole plain) strewed with the fragments of marbles.

Having sketched these objects, I continued my way along the plain to the West, towards two buildings; which, at a distance indeed, appeared scarcely worthy of notice, but which on a nearer inspection proved full of interest. The first is a ruined building of Mahomedan construction, which is now turned into a caravanserai. The door was once arched, and on the architrave are the remains of a fine Arabic inscription.

The other is a building of a form so extraordinary that the people of the country often call it the court of the deevis or devil. It rests upon a square base of large blocks of marble, which rise in seven layers pyramidically. It is in form a parallelogram; the lowest range of the foundation is forty-three by thirty-seven feet; and the edifice itself, which crowns the summit, diminishes to twenty-one by sixteen feet five inches. It is covered by a shelving roof built of the same massy stone as its base and sides, which are all fixed together by clamps of iron, and which on a general view correspond all with the measure of one at the base, (fourteen feet eight inches in length, five feet in depth, and three feet six inches in breadth.) I was not suffered to enter; and through a fissure in the door I could perceive nothing within but a small chamber blackened as it appeared by smoke. Around it, besides a great profusion of broken marbles, are the shafts of fourteen columns, once perhaps a colonnade, but now arranged in the square wall of mud which surrounds the whole remains. To the present day all the space within the enclosure is a place of burial, and is covered indeed with modern tomb-stones. On every part of the monument itself are carved inscriptions, which attest the reverence of its visitors; but there is no vestige of any of the characters of ancient Persia or even of the older Arabic. The key is kept by women, and none but females are permitted to enter. The people generally regard it as the monument of the mother of Solomon, and still connect some efficacy with the name; for they point out near the spot a certain water to which those who may have received the bite of a mad dog resort, and by which, if drank within thirty days, the evil effects of the wound are obviated. In eastern story almost every thing wonderful is attached to the Solomon of Scripture: the King however, to whose mother this tomb is said to be raised, is less incredibly, (as the Carmelites of Shiraz suggested to Mandelsloe,) Shah Soleiman, the fourteenth Caliph of the race of Ali. But though this supposition is more probable than that it is the monument of Bathsheba, it is not to my mind satisfactory, as it differs totally from all the tombs of Mahomedan saints which I have ever seen in Persia, Asia Minor, or Turkey. [Plate XXI.]

If the position of the place had corresponded with the site of Pasagardæ as well as the form of this structure accords with the description of the tomb of Cyrus near that city, I should have been tempted to assign to the present building so illustrious an origin. That tomb was raised in a grove; it was a small edifice covered with an arched roof of stone, and its entrance was so narrow that the slenderest man could scarcely pass through: it rested on a quadrangular base of a single stone, and contained the celebrated inscription, “O mortals, I am Cyrus, son of Cambyses, founder of the Persian monarchy, and Sovereign of Asia, grudge me not therefore this monument.” That the plain around Mesjed Madré Suleiman was the site of a great city, is proved by the ruins with which it is strewed; and that this city was of the same general antiquity as Persepolis may be inferred from the existence of a similar character in the inscriptions on the remains of both, though this particular edifice does not happen to display that internal evidence of a contemporaneous date. A grove would naturally have disappeared in modern Persia; the structures correspond in size; the triangular roof of that which I visited might be called arched in an age when the true semi-circular arch was probably unknown; the door was so narrow, that, if I had been allowed to make the attempt, I could scarcely have forced myself through it; and those who kept the key affirmed that the only object within was an immense stone, which might be “the base of a single piece” described by Arrian; but as he was repeating the account of another, the difference is of little consequence, if it exists. I suspect however, as many of the buildings at Persepolis are so put together that they might once have seemed one vast block, that the present structure might also at one time have possessed a similar appearance. The eternity of his monument indeed, which Cyrus contemplated by fixing it on one enormous stone, would be equally attained by the construction of this fabric, which seems destined to survive the revolutions of ages. And in the lapse of two thousand four hundred years, the absence of an inscription on Mesjed Madré Suleiman would not be a decisive evidence against its identity with the tomb of Cyrus.

I retraced my steps towards the column and pilasters, and passing to the left of them, proceeded to a ruin, probably of one of those buildings which we call fire-temples, and corresponding at least exactly in dimensions, structure, and ornament with that at Nakshi Rustam. Its door opened to the north. On an adjacent hill to the east, at the distance of about three hundred yards, are the remains of a fort erected with the same stupendous materials, as the works on the plain. The blocks are all of white marble, and bear the finest polish. From this height our encampment at Moorgh-aub bore N. 55 E. Having descended again into the plain, crossed the beds of numerous Kanauts, and started several covies of partridges; I reached my tent highly contented with the unexpected gleanings of the day.

Moorgh-aub is a large village, in which there is a fort and many enclosed gardens; and near it are springs of fine water which irrigate the whole plain.

20th. Continuing our road to the N. we passed over a country of ascents and descents, which can hardly be dignified by the denomination of mountains. The different bearings of the road were N. 30 W., then N., then E., then N. E., until we quitted the hills, when the road took a northerly direction, which we kept with some trifling variations for the remainder of our stage. At about nine miles from Moorgh-aub, we arrived at a caravanserai now almost ruined, called from the village which once stood in its neighbourhood, Khonéh Kergaun. Near it a river runs to the west, and over it is a bridge of three arches. We arrived at Deibeed at four o’clock, after having travelled a distance of twenty-five miles. We were seven hours and a half on the road, and we generally calculate our rate of going at little more than three miles in the hour. The country, through which we passed, was naked and arid; the plain only was cultivated, and that partially. It is quite destitute of wood, an article which, of all our necessaries, was collected with the greatest difficulty. On the summits of the mountains, particularly on their northern aspects, were thin patches of snow, and some were scattered even near our encampment. Deibeed is only a caravanserai; close to it is an artificial mound of earth, covered with the foundations of a building, which, from the light brick of its construction, appeared to us a modern work.

The evening set in gloomily; Deibeed is considered the coldest spot in this region, and the snows in the winter have sometimes impeded the progress of travellers for forty days together. The Mehmandar looked at the sky with apprehension; and the Governor of Moorgh-aub, (Aga Khan, an Arab of an old and respected family, who had accompanied us to the bounds of his district to provide amply for our passage) shared his forebodings. He had himself often experienced the severities of this country, and he, better than any one, knew the distresses which the detention of two or three hundred men in a spot so destitute and insulated would occasion. He had provided sustenance for ourselves and our cattle for one night only, and this he had transported with great trouble from Moorgh-aub and other villages. Indeed through the whole of our march great and early were the preparations made by the chiefs of the country for our reception. If these were the difficulties of our passage, the march of an army would not be easily conducted. The country in its present state could not complete magazines of provisions, even if it were required by its own government. It must however be always recollected, that this is the least fertile province of the kingdom.

21st. The snow did not fall, and we proceeded; we travelled nearly north during the whole of this day, and at the termination of our march (a distance of fourteen miles) entered a pass, which is more particularly dreaded as a stoppage in snows. We rested for the night at Khona Khorréh, a poor caravanserai now, but once, by the appearance of its walls, a respectable building. We had here much cause to regret the pleasant and copious streams of Moorgh-aub; for the water which supplied our camp was taken from a pond twenty feet in circumference, so impregnated by the ordure of camels that it appeared quite black. After sun-set, a fresh breeze sprung up from the S. W. It increased in the night; and at about two in the morning blew a furious gale.

Sunday the 22d. The wind continued to rage during the whole of this day, and only fell at night. Heavy clouds from the S. W. overtopped the whole of the surrounding mountains and precipitated themselves down their sides, in the manner of the clouds at the Table Mountain at the Cape, when it blows from the S. E. Many of our tents were blown down and much damaged. Notwithstanding the fury of the tempest we did not omit to put up our prayers and thanksgivings for all the blessings bestowed upon us; and the storm around only added, I hope, to the solemnity of our devotion. The very fine weather with which we have been blessed was certainly a theme of gratitude. We had not had even a shower since our first departure from Bushire; and the oldest inhabitants of this part of the country utter constant ejaculations of astonishment at the extreme moderation of the season, which they are pleased to attribute to the good luck of the Envoy.

Mirza Abool Hassan, a Persian of much influence at court, arrived in the course of the day from Teheran, and was the bearer of a letter from the King to the Envoy. This letter was nearly to the same effect as the first, giving details of the victory over the Russians. We went forward to meet it as before, and adopted the former ceremony of giving it a solemn reading.

23d. Although the violence of the wind had fallen in the morning, very heavy clouds still covered the summits of the mountains, and threatened a renewal of bad weather. We proceeded, however, on a fine hard road (on the bearing of N. 40 W. during the whole march) and arrived in safety at Surmek in five hours and forty minutes after our departure from Khona Khorréh. The people of the country reckon this day’s journey at six long fursungs, though to us it appeared a smaller distance. The Persian fursung is indeed so indeterminate a measure, that no calculation can be safely formed from it, and no man can give a satisfactory account of its real length. On the whole, we found that the reputed distances in the line of our march are rather over-calculated than under-rated. The road leads on the right of a plain which widens at its northern termination. The mountains on both sides of it run N. and S. taking indeed a transverse E. and W. direction at both its extremities; and beyond the first range on the west of the route is another, and a parallel chain of much greater elevation, which binds an intermediate plain. The peasantry are ill clothed, and look miserably. They wear in general a little skull cap, slit on each side, called Dogoosheh. Their dress is a loose coat with hanging sleeves of a very rude cloth, tied about with a coarse sash. Surmek, where we encamped for the night, is situated on the E. side of the plain, near the foot of the mountains. It now consists of a square mud fort, which contains its whole population; around it are the ruins of its original extent. Between the town and the mountains the cultivation is very luxuriant, for the fields are irrigated by kanauts from a neighbouring stream. To the northward of the fort, and two hundred yards from the road, stand the remains of a castle, which the Persians assign to the age of King Bahram, but which, in construction, resembles so nearly the later buildings of the country, that its antiquity becomes suspicious. It is nevertheless in itself a most curious work. A ditch surrounds it, and there is a wall within it, composed, like the outward parts of the fabric, of large stones cemented together by mud. The great variety of vaulted chambers and subterraneous inlets, proves that it was destined for other purposes than those of military defence only.

On the 24th we resumed our march, on a road as hard and fine as that of the preceding day, and on the same bearing; and having travelled in four hours a distance probably of twelve miles, reached our encampment at Abadéh. We noticed many square forts, which are now generally not only the protection of the district, but the residence of the cultivators. The ruins indeed, which overspread the country, contrast its former prosperity too forcibly with the present depopulation. In this region, however, the more immediate causes of its devastation have ceased; for it owed its principal sufferings to the long wars, of which it was the scene, between the Zund and Cadjar families, and which are now terminated by the fortune of the latter. On our arrival at Abadéh, we were saluted as usual by the istakball, who went through all their noise and firing. The first appearance of Abadéh announces a large place; but on a nearer inspection the town exhibits only a great extent of ruined walls without inhabitants. The present population is all enclosed within a square fort, the walls, indeed, of which were crowded by women, whose white veils made them conspicuous objects even at a distance. The fort itself is defended by a turret at each angle, and three in each of the intervening sides. I walked into it to look at a bath, the most respectable building in the place; for the rest consists only of miserable walls of mud or brick. Yet in the rudest wall we found a well-formed arch, which the want of timber has taught the people to construct, and the same necessity has forced the same lesson on other parts of the country.

The property and jurisdiction of Abadéh, Surmek, and Shoolgistoon, with their intervening territories, belong by purchase to one man. Yet the scarcity of water in the district must render it an unprofitable estate. Abadéh, however, is surrounded by gardens, from which some very good fruit is sent to Shiraz; but the irrigation is all carried by artificial kanauts.

25th. The clouds which, on the preceding day, had sprinkled a few flakes of snow on our tract, and had threatened a heavy fall, rolled off before day-break, and opened to us one of the most brilliant mornings in nature. The mountains were no longer concealed from our view; the snow, indeed, covered their summits, and impregnated every blast of wind with a piercing but invigorating freshness. We proceeded along the same plain, on a bearing which averaged N. 29 W. The high lands on each side, now advancing, now receding from us, continued their N. and S. direction; and, where the snow had not covered their surfaces, presented that hard and forbidding aspect which indicated the minerals below.35 The soil on the plain still was gravel lightly mixed with earth, producing nothing but thistles and soap-wort. Indeed, if it were a finer mould, the want of water would render it of little value even to the most skilful possessor. At the distance of three miles from a village called Baghwardar we halted; and I took a meridional observation of the sun, which gave us a latitude of thirty-one degrees twenty-five minutes. We reckoned eight miles from Abadéh to this spot, and nine more to Shoolgistoon, the termination of the day’s march. Whilst we were waiting until the sun should pass the meridian, one of our party picked up the stump of a thistle, and on examining its inside, we found two torpid wasps, which had formed their recess there, waiting the approach of spring once again to issue into life.

The little fort, mosque, and caravanserai at Shoolgistoon are seen at least six miles before they are reached. The plain to the northward of our route was bounded by a flat horizon, from which every successive mountain or building rose, as we advanced, like objects when first seen at sea.

26th. The night was boisterous, the wind blew strong from the southward and westward, and distant thunder rolled over the hills. The morning presented a dark and dismal array of clouds and snow-clad mountains all around us; and when the trumpet sounded for the Envoy’s departure, every thing announced a cold and cheerless ride. The sun made several efforts to break through the heavy atmosphere, and succeeded once or twice, only to cast faint shadows of our troops across the road as we paced along; and, when we were about four miles from our destined encampment at Yezdikhaust, the rain begun to fall. We travelled a distance of fifteen miles in five hours. The road was still carried over a gravel soil, till about two miles from Yezdikhaust, when we entered a softer ground. The mountains gradually dwindled into hills, and seemed to form a termination to this long plain by throwing themselves in lessening forms across it. They continued, like those of our latter route, barren, brown and inhospitable, without a shrub to enliven their rugged masses. On the left of the plain, all were covered with snow, while all to the right were as yet untouched.

We could perceive the town of Yezdikhaust a long time before we reached it, and supposed, therefore, that it was situated at the foot of the eastern hills, on the same plain as that on which we were travelling. Our surprise then was, of course, excited to find ourselves on a sudden stopt by a precipice in our route. From its brow we overlooked a small plain beautifully watered by a variety of streams, and parcelled out in every direction into cultivated fields and gardens. The country which we had crossed was unbroken by the labour of the ploughman; here his industry was displayed and richly rewarded: we had seen scarcely one scanty rill; here water meandered in profusion; and though this little spot was now stripped of its verdure and chilled by the gloom of winter, the contrast between cultivation and a desert was still striking and cheering. This valley is like a large trench excavated in the plain. It is five miles long in an E. and W. direction, and about three hundred yards broad in the line where we crossed; but the breadth is unequal. At the eastern extremity on the brink of the precipice, hangs the town of Yezdikhaust. Its situation is most fantastical, and its mean and ill-defined houses appear at first sight to belong to the rocks on which they rise, and which, in varied and extravagant masses, surround the valley. The substance of the rock is soft. Beneath it is a caravanserai, an elegant building erected near two hundred years ago by a pious Queen of the Seffi race. It is still in good repair, less by the care of the present generation than by the original solidity of its structure. On the verge of the precipice is a small mosque, built by the same Queen; and around it a burial place. Yezdikhaust is the frontier town of the provinces of Fars and Irak. Before the conquest of the Affghans it was a place of some consequence, but since their devastations it has never resumed its prosperity. It was taken by assault, and the inhabitants put to the sword. To the East, over a rude drawbridge, is the entrance to the town, which, without the use of cannon, seems almost impregnable. It is there an isolated rock, connected with the others around only by this bridge.

27th. It rained at intervals during the night with much fury. It cleared up, however, during the morning, and the sun shone bright; but it was then freezing so hard, that we were obliged to leave the tents behind us until they should have lost their stiffness in the warmth of the day. The feast of the Corban Bairam now commenced among the Mussulmans. The Persians performed the ceremonies of the day, and we again proceeded on our journey. The direction of our march averaged N. 10 W. After travelling nearly seven hours we reached its termination at Maxhood-Beggy, a distance of eighteen miles. The line of our route led us to the W. side of the plain, over a road still finer even than that on which we had journied on the preceding day. The mountains lost their regular bearing and outline, and were more varied in their projections and recesses. At about nine miles from Yezdikhaust we arrived at a caravanserai and a fort, the approaches to which were thickly spread with the vestiges of a town. The place was called Ameenabad. On the plain also, which succeeded, were scattered ruins. A North-east wind sprung up, and, passing down the snowy summits of the mountains, brought a sharpness so piercing, that, for the first time, we were incommoded by the cold, and were anxious to get to our encampment for the night.

Before our arrival, we were met by a person deputed by the Governor of Ispahan, to welcome us into his territory. Maxhood-Beggy is seen at a distance, and then looks a large place. But the appearances of its grandeur vanish on a nearer approach in ruins; some indeed are substantial walls, and the remains of bazars. Yet, instead of the dilapidated chamber of some miserable caravanserai, which alone we could have expected, we were lodged in a house of singular convenience and even elegance. It was built in fact, for her own accommodation, by the Queen at Shiraz, (the mother of the Prince Governor of Farsistan) who was accustomed every two years to take a journey to the King at Teheran, and who accordingly provided on both the winter and the summer route a similar resting place. She enjoys a great reputation, and the affections of the people; for she is charitable to the poor, and ready to do justice to the oppressed.

28th. When we departed from Maxhood-Beggy, our weather was clear and serene. There was not a breath in the heavens, and the clouds had dispersed. As we approached Komeshah, the plain appeared more cultivated and better inhabited. Among the small forts and enclosed gardens of men, were interspersed small towers built for the convenience of the wild pigeons. These birds are greatly encouraged round the country, for their manure is considered essential to the fertility of the fields; the immense number of pigeon houses (in ruins, or still entire) on the plain about Komeshah, attest at least the prevalence of the belief, if not the truth of the fact. The distance to Komeshah is twelve miles on a bearing of N. 10 W. This place also was once large, and in the time of the Seffis well peopled. It still occupies a large tract of ground, and is walled all around. But since it was taken by the Affghans, and a great part of its inhabitants put to the sword; it has fallen hopelessly. After having crossed the bed of the stream, and the channels of an immense number of kanauts, we entered the town through a gate to the westward. We passed through streets and bazars, of which nothing but the bare walls were standing, and at length reached the best house in the place; but the only approach even to this was amid the stones and mud fragments of surrounding ruins. Travelling in our present mode, and carrying about a population of our own, we do not so much feel the misery with which a country so wretched, and towns so devastated, would inspire any one of us going through the same tract a solitary individual. The ruins themselves become animated on being peopled by our numerous party, who spread themselves all about in busy groups, and awake the solitude and silence of these wastes so long unbroken by the vivacity of their disputes, the confusion of their different works, and the vociferations of their rude songs. As soon as we entered Komeshah, all the place was in motion; the scanty population which it afforded, and which had been accumulated by that of every neighbouring village, came out to greet us, betraying indeed their own wretchedness by the poverty of their clothing, and every comfortless circumstance of their appearance. They have a manufacture of cloth in Komeshah called kaduck, a better sort of that coarse linen called kerbas, which is made in every village.

The Envoy, according to the common custom of the country, sent a present to the Governor of the place, with this difference, indeed, that it was much larger than the rank of the party entitled him to expect. It consisted of cloth, fine chintz, &c. The Governor however, when it was brought to him, indignantly snatched one piece of chintz, and told the bearer to take the rest as unworthy of his own acceptance, in the hope that the Envoy would hasten to atone for his disrespect by doubling the gift. Sir Harford, with great indifference, desired the servant to keep what he had received, and congratulated him on his good luck. In vain did the Governor entreat to have the original gift restored, in vain did the Mehmandar mediate, the Envoy was inflexible, and the Governor, to the laugh of every one, remained with his single piece.

29th. At a mile and a half from Komeshah, on the left, is the tomb of Shah Reza, and near it an extensive burying ground; over one of the tombs is the remains of a lion in stone: whatever it may mean, it is certain that it dates from the remotest antiquity, being evidently prior to the Arabian conquests, and to the establishment of the Mahomedan religion in Persia. The ruined forts, the towers for pigeons, and other signs of habitation and cultivation which are seen on the plain to the Northward of the town, prove that Komeshah has shared the prosperity of the better days of Persia. Our weather continued most delightful, nor did I indeed recollect to have ever seen an atmosphere so lucid and so soft. The mountains to the Northward, which shewed their distant summits over the ridges of the nearer hills, although crowned with snow did not seem to have been so overwhelmed, as those which we had passed to the Southward.

30th. Our road to Mayar was distant fourteen miles; the village is situated at the foot of the mountains bearing N. from Komeshah, a point which we ascertained by setting the high hill over that place. At Mayar is a fine caravanserai built by the mother of Shah Abbas. It is a very extensive building, consisting of one front court, on the right and left of which, under lofty arches, are rooms and stables for the convenience of travellers. The front of the principal gate is inlaid with green lacquered tiles and neat cut bricks. It opens into the large square, in the centre of which is a platform of the same shape. On the right of the exterior front, is the cistern, over the orifice of which is thrown a platform with a pillar at each corner. The general structure is of brick, except some of the better rooms, in which a fine blue stone is used. The whole is falling rapidly into decay as a caravanserai, and has now indeed been converted into one of the common forts of the country by raising mud walls around and turrets at proper intervals: a miserable contrast to the elegant and substantial workmanship of former times.

Our camp was usually quiet, but in our later progress it was disturbed by the quarrels of our own servants (who were mostly from Farsistan) and those of the Mehmandar (who were natives of Irak). The rivality and hatred, which exist between the people of the two neighbouring provinces, can be conceived by those only who have witnessed their effects. They are much greater than between Christian and Mahomedan, or Sheyah and Sunni. The two parties frequently come to blows, which would have closed the dispute to which I allude, if we had not interfered; and if the Mehmandar had not exerted his best influence and authority by administering the stick plentifully to all the offending parties.

31st. We called it twenty miles from Mayar to Ispahanek. We reached the extremity of the plains of Mayar, and then wound through the mountains for about two hours, till we came into the plains of Ispahan. Our road bore, on an average, North. The Envoy was unwell, and rode in the takht-e-ravan, a species of litter which is suspended by shafts on the backs of mules, one before and one behind. This conveyance, when the mules keep an even pace, is not unpleasant, but when the animals break into a trot, becomes very disagreeable. On entering the plain, we started a flock of antelopes.

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