Vol. V, No. 8.]  . Some Persian Folk-lore Stories. 281 
[N.S.] 
of the Martini Henry rifle in the tombs of Persepolis, although I 
had heard allusions to the fact at Kirman, 125 miles further 
away. This is all-the more interesting, and emphasises the 
wide and general belief in the story, as the inhabitants of the 
Kirman and ehr-i-Babak districts rarely or never visit 
Shiraz; Yazd is the town from which all their supplies are 
drawn. The story was told me not once or twice, but almost 
every day on my march towards Persepolis by the various 
villagers and caravan men met with on the road. One ma. 
indeed say without hesitation that this is the most universally 
believed of all the stories concerning Persepolis current 
amongst the Persians of the present day. The general idea 
of the story seemed always to be that a European had visited 
the tombs soon after the middle of the last century, and that 
he had ascended tothem with the aid of ladders and tackle, 
which he had brought from Shiraz for the purpose. Having 
entered the tombs, he broke open the great, stone lids of the 
sarcophagi,! and in one he found a Martini Henry rifle 
This, together with other treasures, he carried off to England, 
notwithstanding the efforts of his Persian attendants, whom 
e bound and left lying in one of the tombs to be rescued by 
some passer-by. ; 
nnected with this story is a general belief that Europeans 
1 The universal belief that the sarcophagi were violated in very 
recent times is curio it would be interesting to be able to a give 
Satisfactory explanation of this fact.—C. M. G 
