Sir R. Ker Porter's Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, &c. 
Alexander found it; néither in the su- 
perb ruin in which ‘Timour had left it; 
but, almost unconsciously to myself, 
some indistinct ideas of what it bad 
been, floated before me; and, when I 
actually beheld its remains,“it was Willi 
the appalled shock of Seeing ‘a prostrate 
dead hody, where I had anticipated ‘a 
livitig man, though drooping to decay. 
Orontes, indeed, was there, magnificent 
and hoary headed ; the funeral monu- 
nieht of the poor corse beneath. Hay- 
ing, fora few moments, gazed at the 
veherable mountain, and on the sad va- 
cuum at its base; what had been Ecba- 
tana, being now shrank to comparative 
nothingness ; I turned my eye on the still 
busy scene of life, which occupied the - 
adjacent country ; the extensive plain of 
Hamadan, ‘and its widely extending 
hills. On our right, the receding vale 
was varied, at short distances, with 
nutmberless castellated villages rising 
from’ amidst. ‘groves of the noblest 
trees; while the great plain itself, 
stréetehed northward and eastward to 
such far remoteness, that ifs mountain 
boundaries appeared like clouds upon 
the horizon. This whole tract seemed 
one carpet of luxuriant verdare, studded 
with liamlets, and watered by beautiful 
rival ets. On the south-west, Orontes, 
or Elwond, (by which ever name we 
may designate this most towering divi- 
sion of the mountain,) presents itself, in 
all the stupendous grandeur of its fame 
and form. Near to its base, appear the 
dark-coloured dwellings of Hamadan, 
erowded thickly on each other ; while 
the gardens of the inhabitants, with 
their connecting orchards and woods, 
fringe the entire slope of that part of the 
mountain. Its higher regions exhibit 
every variety of picturesque forms, and 
indigenous vegetable production, whe- 
ther in scent or hue; while from its 
rocky crest the brightness of the risen 
sun was reflected, mingling its rays with 
the brilliantly clear springs which wind 
in rills amongst its upland paths ; or roll, 
in accumulated streams, down upon the 
plain below, inviting, and assisting the 
hand of industry. 
‘Towards the end of the fourteenth 
century, it received its final blow under 
tlre arms of ‘Vimour, the Tartar, who 
sacked, iNaged, and destroyed its 
proudest buildings, ruined the inhabi- 
tants, and reduced the whole, from being 
one of the most extensive cities of the 
East, to bardly a farsang in length and 
breadth, In that dismantled and dis- 
membered state, though dwindled down 
583 
to a mere clay-built snburb of what it 
was, it possessed iron gates, till within 
these fifty years; when Aga Mahomed 
Khan, not satisfied with the depth of so 
great a capital’s degradation, ordered 
every remain of past consequence to be 
totally destroyed. | His commands were 
obeyed to a tittle’ The mud alleys, 
which now occupy the site of ancicnt 
streets or squares, are narrow, inter- 
rupted by large holes, or hollows, in the 
way, and heaps of the fallen crumbled 
walls of deserted dwellings. A miser- 
able bazar or two are passed through in 
traversing the town; and large lonely 
spots are met with, marked by broken 
low mounds over older ruins; with here 
and there a few poplars, or willow trees, 
shadowing the border of a dirty stream, 
abandoned to the meanest uses; which, 
probably, flowed pellucid and admired, 
when these places were gardens, and 
the grass-grown heap, some’ stately 
dwelling of Ecbatana. In one or two 
spots I observed square platforms, com 
posed of large stones; the faces of many 
of which were chiseiled all over into the 
fixest arabesque fretwork, whilst others 
had, in addition, long inscriptions in the 
Arabic character. ‘They had evidently 
been tombstones of the inhabitants, du- 
ring the caliph rule in Persia, But 
when we compare relics of the seventh 
century, with the deep antiquity of the 
heaped ruins on which they lie, these 
monumental remains seem but the re- 
gister of yesterday. For what purpose, 
or when they were disturbed from their 
original destination, and arranged in 
their present order, are subjects of no 
easy conjecture. The only thing that 
appears for some years to have kept the 
place in any degree of notice with the 
modern Persians, is the manufacture of 
a superior sort of leather; but the very 
article of traffic proclaims the Jow order 
of population to which it has been aban- 
doned; and as 1 passed through tbe 
wretched, hovelled streets, and saw the 
once lofty city of Astyages, shrunk like 
a shrivelled gourd, the contemplation of 
such a spectacle called forth more sad- 
dening reflections than any that had been 
awakened in me on, ‘any former ground 
of departed greathess. ” Ih’some I had 
seen mouldering ponip, or sublime de- 
solation ; in this, every Object spoke of 
neglect, and hopeless poverty. Not 
majesty in stately ruin, pining to final 
dissolution on, the spot where it was 
first blasted; but beggary, scated on the 
place which kings had occupied, squalid 
in rags, and ‘stupid with misery. It 
was 
