SHIRAZ TO PERSEPOLIS. 
1ST 
that document becomes still more suspicious. Speaking of the cele¬ 
brated inscriptions at Persepolis , he says, “ on voit aussi plusieurs 
“ caracffires anciens mais fort bien marques, et conservant une partie 
“ de For, dont ils ont ete remplis.” Sir Thomas Herbert also, how¬ 
ever, mentions that the letters at Persepolis were gilt. 
17th. On quitting Persepolis , I left our party in order to examine 
a ruined building on the plains, which at a distance is generally pointed 
out as a demolished caravanserai. I passed the stream of the Rood 
KhonSh Sewund to the North, nearly w'here the road takes a N. E. 
direction, and came to a fine mass of stone, thirty-seven feet four 
inches square, which appears to have formed the base of some build¬ 
ing. It is composed of two layers of marble blocks, the lower range 
of which extends about two feet beyond the line of the upper. The 
largest blocks, according to my measurement, are ten feet four 
inches in length, four feet four in depth, and three feet four in breadth; 
all still retain a moulding, and traces here and there of masonry which 
must have connected them ivith others. The whole building is filled 
up in the middle by a black marble, and in its N. E. angle one stone 
is raised higher than the rest. In the same angle, is a channel cut, as 
if something had been fitted into it. I took the following bearings: 
foot of the rocks of Nakshi Rustam , N. 10 W. two miles; foot of 
the mountain of Persepolis , S. two miles: our encampment S. 20 W. 
two miles; road to Ispahan , N. 80 E. 
I was called from this spot by a Chatter sent by the Envoy to 
conduct me to some sculptures, which he had himself seen, (about 
four miles from the place on the same mountain of Persepolis ,) by the 
side of the road to Ispahan. I found them indeed worthy of the 
minutest investigation, as no preceding traveller has described them 
with any sufficient accuracy. They are situated in a recess of the 
mountain, formed by projecting and picturesque rocks. The sculpture 
facing the road is composed of seven colossal figures and two small 
ones. (Plate XIX.) The two principal characters are placed in the 
centre : the one to the left is the same (not in pos^i™* indeed, but in 
T 
