132 
SHIRAZ TO PERSEPOLIS. 
Proceeding from this towards the mountains, (situated in the rear of 
the great hall of columns) stand the remains of a magnificent room. 
Here are still left walls, frames and porticoes, the sides of which are 
thickly ornamented with bas-reliefs of a variety of compositions. This 
hall is a perfect square. To the right of this, and further to the south¬ 
ward are more fragments, the walls and component parts apparently of 
another room. To the left of this, and therefore to the northward of 
the building, are the remains of a portal, on which are to be traced the 
features of a sphinx. Still towards the north, in a separate collection, 
is the ruin of a column, which, from the fragments about it, must have 
supported a sphinx. In a recess of the mountain to the northward, is 
a portico. Almost in a line with the centre of the hall of columns, on 
the surface of the mountain is a tomb. To the southward of that is 
another, in like manner on the mountain's surface; between both (and 
just on that point where the ascent from the plain commences) is a re¬ 
servoir of water. 
These constitute the sum of the principal objects among the ruins of 
Persepolis , some of which I will now endeavour to describe in more 
detail. The grand staircase consists of a Northern and a Southern 
ascent, which spring from the plain at the distance of forty-six feet from 
each other. Each again is divided into two flights; the first, termi¬ 
nated by a magnificent platform, contains fifty-four steps on a base of 
sixty-six feet six inches, measured from the first step to a perpendicular 
dropt from the highest at the landing place: the second, to the extreme 
summit of the whole, consists of forty-eight steps on a base of forty-six 
feet eight inches. Each step is in breadth twenty-six feet six inches, 
and in height three inches and a half. So easy therefore is the ascent, 
that the people of the country always mount it on horseback. The 
platform, where the two grand divisions meet, is thirty-four feet from 
the ground, and in length seventy. From the front of this platform to 
the portals behind is likewise seventy feet. 
The portals are composed of immense oblong blocks of marble; 
