156 
SHIRAZ TO PERSEPOLIS. 
than of any other animal, and the legs confirmed this supposition; as 
it has claws so placed, as to indicate that the posture of the figure was 
couchant. 
The grand collection of porticoes, walls, and other component parts 
of a magnificent hall, are situated behind the columns, at the distance 
perhaps of fifty paces, and are arranged in a square. 
On the interior sides of the porticoes or door frames, are many 
sculptured figures, which have been drawn with accuracy by Le 
JBruf. They represent the state and magnificence of a King, seated 
in a high chair with his feet resting on a footstool. 
To the north of these remains, is the frame of what was once a por¬ 
tico, and where the outlines of a sphinx are to be traced among the 
rude and stupendous masses of stone. Further on, nearly on the same 
line and bearing, is the head of a horse, part, of whieh is buried in the 
ground. It is ornamented like the remains of that which we call the 
sphinx on the great portals, and is certainly the horse’s head, which 
Le Brun drew, declaring that he could not discover the part to which 
it had belonged. Close to it, however, are the remains of an immense 
column, eight feet in diameter; the different parts of the shaft have 
fallen in a direct line with this head, and obviously formed with it one 
connected piece in the original structure, in which probably the frag¬ 
ment on the ground surmounted the capital, as the sphinx still crowns 
some of the remaining columns. 
In the time of Mandelsloe, (who visited Persepolis 27th January, 
1638) the number of columns erect was nineteen : in a letter indeed 
to Olearius, (written from Madagascar on the 12th of July, 1639? 
and published by his correspondent) he states, that thirty remained; 
but, as he does not specify their position, he might have included those 
lying on the ground, and at any rate he was writing a private letter, 
from memory, in a distant country, at the interval of a year and a 
half. His own authority therefore in his book is a better evidence of 
the fact; and as he there omits another and much more curious 
circumstance, which he had asserted in the same letter, the value of 
I 
