168 
ISPAHAN. 
indeed all the portraits of the Europeans appear, and which is suffi- 
ciently explained by the recollection that Shah Abbas had Dutch 
painters in his pay. The other rooms in this department are similarly 
decorated and gilded; and in some hang portraits of the King, to 
which the natives, as they approach, all make an inclination of the 
head. Under the great room are summer apartments excavated in 
the ground, which in their season must be delightful retreats. They 
are all wainscoted and paved with marble slabs, and water is introduced 
by cascades, which fall from the ground floor, and refresh the whole 
range. A passage leads to the bath, which, though small, is elegant. 
The domes are supported by columns, taken from the Armenian 
churches at Julfa. 
From this court, a passage leads into several others for inferior 
women; and then into two rooms built by Ashreff, one of the 
Afghan Kings. The latter are indeed much inferior to those which I 
have already described. They have heavy massive glasses and gild¬ 
ings, and coarse paintings of fruits and flowers, without any representa¬ 
tion of the human figure. On the whole, however, we found through¬ 
out the palace much sameness, both in the arrangement of the 
rooms, and in the distribution of the grounds. In the love of water 
and running streams, a Persian taste is fully gratified at Ispahan , 
through which the Zaiande-rood affords for all their ornamental purposes 
an unceasing supply. 
From the interior of the palaces we ascended the Ali Capi gate, 
which forms the entrance. This gate, once the scene of the magnifi¬ 
cence of the Seffi family, the threshold of which was ever revered as 
sacred, is now deserted, and only now and then a solitary individual is 
seen to pass negligently through. The remains of that splendour, so mi¬ 
nutely and exactly described by Chardin, are still to be traced; the 
fine marbles remain, and the grandeur and elevation of the dome are 
still undemolished. A ragged porter opened a small door to the right, 
by which we ascended to the pavilion where Shah Abbas was wont 
