201 



Khorassan was in ancient times the chief focus of the fire-wor- 

 ship, the country in whose capital, Balhk,* the great Archimagus 

 and reformer of the Gebres dwelt, and had his principal fire-temple. 

 There then we may naturally expect to find some architectural 

 remains of corresponding character. Accordingly, Mr. Frazer, a 

 recent traveller in that region, has discovered that buildings of this 

 nature are of frequent occurrence. Among the ruins of the city of 

 Damghan, he found a curious tower built of brick, higlily orna- 

 mented and singular in its architecture, being of a cylindrical form, 

 and only fifteen feet in diameter. It is about thirty feet high, and 

 crowned by a conical dome.-f- 



There is another prodigious circular tower called Goom buz-e- 

 caoos ; its inner diameter ten paces, or about fifty feet, the walls are 

 nearly ten feet thick, and the whole height is not less than an hun- 

 dred and fifty feet ; the diameter of the tower gradually lessens as it 

 rises, so as to give the walls a slight degree of batter, and the top is 

 finished in a lofty and pointed cone. The tower, though circular 

 , within, is on the outside divided into ten " salient and recentering 

 angles." Withinside the wall is perfectly smooth, without a break 

 to the very top, where one window gives light to the whole. It 

 appears evidently to have had no floor, nor any division, nor is there 

 the least vestige of stairs. It is built of the finest square fire-baked 

 bricks, about two and a half inches thick ; the cone-shaped dome 

 is also covered with bricks of the same shape laid flat, which have 

 endured the lapse of time so well, that no more than two have 

 failed. The masonry is excellent, and the lime cement so strong 

 that the building is as perfect as when newly finished, except for a 



• Balhk signifies an oak — the sacred tree of the Magi and the Druids. — Drummond's Originei, 

 I. p. 322. Balhk was also the great seat of Magian learning. — Ibid. I. p. 337. 

 f Narrative of a Journey into Khorassen, by J. B. Fraser, p. 314, 



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