154 



LETTERS FROM PROFESSOR CARLYLE 



tombs of the Persian Kings cut out of the rock in the vicinity of Per- 

 sepohs. Upon one of those immense catacombs are two inscrip- 

 tions in Greek characters, which, from the form of the letters, must 

 have been considerably anterior to the time of Alexander. General 

 Koeler made sketches of most of the things we passed which seemed 

 deserving of attention, and he has been so good as to promise me 

 copies of all of them. The gentlemen who were with him, INIajor 

 Fletcher and Captain Leake, together with myself, were employed in 

 measuring and taking those inscriptions we could get access to ; so 

 that I trust (as I have kept a very minute journal of every thing that 

 took place) our three weeks tour will not be uninteresting. But, my 

 Lord, while we were employed and amused with these investigations, 

 it was impossible not to feel melancholy at the sight of the once fertile 

 and populous countries we travelled over ; they are now almost a 

 desert, and must remain in this situation as long as the present system 

 of government prevails amongst them. Every little Aga of a village is 

 an independent prince, and generally at war with all his neighbours. 

 Hence the people are obliged to live in towns, and about these alone can 

 any cultivation take place. If by any accident one of these towns is 

 destroyed or depopulated, it is destroyed for ever, and the cultivation 

 aroinid it immediately closes. Thus, by degrees, all these fine plains 

 are becoming absolutely wastes. We travelled over one which was 

 at least 200 miles in length, and from fifteen to twenty miles in 

 breadth ; a surface, I believe, equal to one half of Yorkshire, and 

 consisting of the richest land that can be desired for agriculture. 

 The whole of the inhabitants of this large tract of country, where the 

 corn yields upwards of twenty for one, certainly do not amount to 

 above twenty-seven or twenty-eight thousand persons, of which two- 

 thirds are contained in the towns of Coniah and Caraman. The isle 

 in which we now are seems to have suffered less from the blighting 

 influence of Turkish power than most other parts of the empire ; but 

 I cannot think that it contains at present one-fourth of the inhabitants 

 it is capable of supporting, and I fear these are rapidly diminishing in 

 number. I purpose spending a couple of weeks in Palestine, where 



