SUPPLEMENTARY NUMBER 
To THE FIFTY-THIRD VOLUME or tHe 
MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
No. :370.] 
JULY 31, 1822. 
[Price 2s, 
Selections from the Chief Publications of the Half- Year. 
— 
TRAVELS 
IN 
GEORGIA, PERSIA, ARMENIA, 
ANCIENT BABYLONIA, 
&c. §e. 
During the Years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820. 
BY SIR ROBERT KER PORTER. 
With mimerous Engravings of Portraits, Costumes, 
Antiquities,@c. Ato. 4l. 14s. 6d. 
[This is one of the best written, and most 
elegant books of travels, which, for 
many years, has issued from the press. 
The countries visited are deeply instruct- 
ing from numerons associations, and we 
have not often had travellers who have 
-had the author’s courage to explore 
their recesses, his ability to describe 
them, or his pencil to depict their. most 
remarkable objects. He travelled too 
* with. the feeling which gratifies the 
- reader’s curiosity in regard to the most 
striking objects, and his descriptions are 
full, clear, and satisfactory. We may’ 
instance his description of the ruins of 
Babylon, those objects of universal 
sympathy, and those pictures of what 
time will render all cities, however great 
or proud. We feel that we have snfi- 
. ciently trespassed on the author’s rights 
in the length of the quotations we have 
made, or we could have considerably 
extended them to the pleasure and 
profit of our readers. The specimens 
* given will, however, we trust, add to the 
value of our volume, and stimulate the 
patrons of literature to possess them- 
selves of the entire work. This second 
' -volume completes the author’s plan, and 
the first volume we duly noticed ina 
- former Supplément.] 
A SACRED VILLAGE IN PERSIA. 
_ A T three o’clock in the morning of 
August Ist, we left the carayan- 
sary, and turned our cavalcade into a 
north-western direction through another 
narrow valley; bounded on each side 
/by craggy mountains, which were tra- 
versed by the most opposite and varied 
strata I had ever seen... A. stream, 
equally clear and inviting with those of 
the Kala-Gul-Aub, flowed by our path, 
’ 
which lay under groves of wild almond, 
Monrucy Mac. No. 3”. 
hawthorn, and mulberry-trees, inter- 
mixed with large bushes bearing a 
flower resembling lavender both in ap- 
pearance and smell. Notwithstanding 
the vernal luxuriance of such a scene, 
the road itself was extremely desert and 
bad, being a continuation of rough, 
loose stones the whole way from Mayan 
to Iman Zada Ismael, a journey of three 
farsangs. This latter village is consi- 
dered holy ground, and not only shews a 
general aspect of comfortable means, 
but an air of civilization seldom met 
with on this side of Ispaban. Every indi- 
vidual in the place claims hisdescent from 
Mahommed ; hence they are all called 
Saieds, or sons of the prophet. . A pic- 
turesque old caravansary nearly in ruins, 
and a high-domed building, are its most 
conspicuous . objects. _The hospitality 
of the natives seems to have rendered the 
former useless; and the latter, which 
gives its name to the village, covers the 
holy relics of the Iman Zada Ismael. 
Of his particular history nothing is now 
remembered, but that this is his tomb ; 
the sanctity of which would of itself hal- 
low the ground in its vicinity ; therefore 
this spot has, a double. claim: to reyer- 
ence, being an abode of the living de. 
scendanis of the prophet as well.as of 
the dead. 
We were lodged in the house of one 
of the ten thousand branches -of the 
great holy stock, where the most unex- 
ampled attention was shown to our con- 
venience. <A principal division. of the 
mansion was cleared entirely of its usual 
inhabitants, and the vacated apartments, 
above and below, appropriated to the 
sole use of ourselves, our people, and 
our quadrupeds. Every sort of provi- 
sion thatthe village afforded was at our 
command, and due attendance to pre- 
pare and serve it. “We were surprised 
‘by finding the women of the place not 
only. walking about in freedom, but 
completely unveiled, and. mixing pro- 
miscuously in discourse or occupation 
with the male inhabitants;. neither did 
they retreat from their various domestic 
‘employments. on our near approach. 
Their features’are regular, with dark 
, 4D complexions, 
