ANCIENT INSCRIPTIONS. 109 



be conveniently strapped on to a galloping pony, you 

 must travel as the patriarchs of old, with the immemorial 

 camel or the hard -worked baggage -mule. It can of 

 course be claimed as an advantage that travelling thus 

 one sees far more of the country than would be possible 

 otherwise ; and the country I was about to travel 

 through was of exceptional interest, whether looked at 

 from the point of view of the lover of strange records 

 from the past, or from that of the speculator as to the 

 political possibilities of the future. In the magnificent 

 rock sculptures near Kermanshah the lover of the 

 antique will find ample reward for his journey ; while 

 twenty miles farther on, high up on the precipitous 

 rock-cliffs of Piru, stand inscribed the imperishable 

 records of Darius, which proclaim to the world to-day, 

 as confidently as when first cut upon the face of the 

 rock 2400 years ago, the achievements of one of the 

 mightiest monarchs of the past. The more practical 

 mind, bent on inquiry into trade and commercial re- 

 turns, will find ample material to occupy attention, 

 while an added interest is to be found in the fact that 

 here lies the most probable line of a Trans-continental 

 railway which some of us may yet live to see. 



Between Baghdad and the Persian frontier there is 

 little that calls for remark. You travel for ninety miles 

 across the level plain of Chaldsea, crossing only three 

 insignificant ridges as you draw towards the frontier. 

 Kound Baghdad is displayed a panorama which is 

 mournful and irretrievably monotonous — one, that is to 

 say, with which the traveller in the East is likely to 

 become painfully familiar. Dry, dusty, drab- coloured 

 desert is the only description that can be given of the 

 country that stretches eastward from Baghdad, though 

 desert only because uncultivated. It would probably 

 be difficult to find soil that would give better value in 



