puted age of Istakhar, no doubt can possibly be entertained of that 

 of NAKHTI HOST AM, two leagues distant from Persepolis, since it 

 could not have been designed before the hero was born, and the 

 mighty exploits had taken place, which the ornamental sculptures 

 on that monument were intended to celebrate. Now, allowing to 

 Rostam the very extended age which the Persian historians assign 

 him, that hero (or rather the first and most celebrated of the name ; 

 for, to give sense or credibility to the Eastern relations concerning 

 him, we must suppose there to have been a succession, or dynasty, 

 of them reigning in Sejestan) could not have been long dead when 

 Hystaspes mounted the Persian throne ; which circumstance, added 

 to the impressive one of the mystic designation, (a direct allusion to 

 the worship of the sun and of fire,) engraved on the front of that 

 rocky shrine, forbid us to hesitate at pronouncing Hystaspes to have 

 designed it in honour of the friend and defender of his family. The 

 reader will observe that Istakhar is, throughout these short stric- 

 tures, considered as a palace, not as a temple, in which light some 

 eminent antiquaries have regarded these ruins ; for, I am aware 

 that the erection of temples was contrary to the principle of the 

 reformed religion of Zeratusht, and it was that very principle which 

 urged them on with such furious zeal to destroy the sublime edifices 

 first of Egypt, and, as we shall presently see, of India itself. If an 

 objection should be started to this hypothesis, which gives the ho- 

 nour of founding Persepolis to Hystaspes, on the ground of the in- 

 scription not being written in the Zend character, which was then in 

 use, and which, in that case, must have been long ago deciphered by 

 learned Persians, the most satisfactory answer to this, and indeed to 

 all similar questions concerning them, is to be found in Sir William 

 Jones's Essay on the Persians, who thinks it may reasonably be 

 doubted whether those characters are really alphabetical : he is of 

 opinion "that they are secret and sacerdotal; or, perhaps, a mere 

 Vol. in. X 



