72 
CORBAL.. 
and notwithstanding their misery, the inhabitants went through the 
forms of hospitality towards us. 
On the 27th of April I sent my servants and baggage forwards, 
to take possession of a building and garden, situated about half a 
mile from the ruins of Persepolis, and proceeded with my Meh- 
mandar to Corbal, where I was told I should see the NoJcara KJioneh * 
of Jemsheed, with many sculptures and remains of antiquity. We 
passed the chain of rocky mountains which rise abruptly behind 
Zergoon, and instead of keeping the road that leads to the bridge 
over the river of the Bend Emir, we took to the right; and 
having crossed a small turfy plain that recedes behind the Zergoon 
mountain, at the farthest extremity of which are a number of wells 
and water-wheels for the irrigation of a plantation of tobacco, we 
passed over an angle of the mountains, which form the southern and 
western boundary of the great plain of Merdasht. We then kept close 
at the foot of these mountains, in a south-easterly direction, with the 
river flowing to the left of our road, until we came to a remarkable- 
looking rock, which forms a termination to the range, and behind 
which new mountains arise of extraordinary shapes, making an amphi¬ 
theatre of huge and stupendous rocks. It is this remarkable rock 
which is called the Nokara KhoneJi; but instead of the discoveries 
which I fondly hoped to make, I was disappointed in finding that there 
was nothing but the rock to be explored, and no sculptures nearer than 
* 'Nokara is a large drum -—Nokara Kkoneh, the jdace of drums. 
