﻿ON THE PERSIANS. 57 



tions without wasting more time than I had then at 

 command, in comparing the letters and ascertaining 

 the proportions in which they severally occurred. 

 The gross Pahlavi was improved by Zeralusht or his 

 disciples into an elegant and perspicuous character, in 

 which the Zendavesta was copied ; and both were 

 written from the right hand to the left, like other 

 Chaldaic alphabets, for they are manifestly both of 

 Chaldean origin ; but the Zend has the singular ad- 

 vantage of expressing all the long and short vowels by 

 distinct marks in the body of each word, and all the 

 words are distinguished by full points between them; 

 so that if modern Persian were unmixed with Arabic, 

 it might be written in Zend with the greatest conveni- 

 ence, as any one may perceive, by copying in that 

 character a few pages of the Shahnamah. As to the 

 unknown inscriptions in the palace of Jemshid, it may 

 reasonably be doubted whether they contain a system 

 of letters which any nation ever adopted : in Jive of 

 them the letters, which are separated by points, may 

 be reduced to forty, at least I can distinguish no 

 more essentially different ; and they all seem to be 

 regular variations and compositions of a straight line 

 and an angular figure like the head of a javelin, or a 

 leaf (to use the language of botanists; hearted and 

 lanced. Many of the Runic letters appear to have 

 been formed of similar elements ; and it has been ob- 

 served, that the writing at Persepolis bears a strong 

 resemblance to that which the Irish call Ogham. The 

 word Agam in Sanscrit means mysterious knowledge ; 

 but I dare not affirm that the two words had a com- 

 mon origin ; and only mean to suggest that, if the 

 characters in question be really alphabetical, they were 

 probably secret and sacerdotal, or a mere cypher per- 

 haps, of which the priests only had the key. They 

 might, I imagine, be decyphered if the language were 

 certainly known ; but in all other inscriptions of the 



