76 
RUINS OF PERSEPOLIS. 
day. The faces of all the figures to the right of the staircase are 
mutilated, which must be attributed to the bigotry of the first 
Mussulmans who invaded Persia; those of the newly-discovered figures 
are quite perfect, which shows that they must have been covered before 
the Saracen invasion: the nicety of their preservation would lead one 
to suppose that they had been so protected for many ages before that 
invasion. 
On comparing Le Bruyn’s, Chardin’s, and Niehbuhr’s drawings with 
the sculptures, I found them in general correct in outline, but imper¬ 
fect in the details of dress, arms, &c. Although the figures are in^ 
themselves ill-proportioned, inelegant, and deficient in anatomical 
drawing, yet they are prodigiously interesting in general character, and 
have not been done justice to in the works of those travellers. They 
furnish the best models of what were the nations that invaded Greece 
with Xerxes, and that were subdued by Alexander. 
I had not proceeded two days in my excavations, when I was sur¬ 
prised to hear that the peasants refused to work any more for me. I had 
paid them handsomely; and they had assured me, that until I had 
given them wherewith to buy food, they had not tasted bread for many 
a day; and their account was confirmed to me by an old woman, who 
in begging me to give her some money stooped down, and plucking a 
piece of grass from the ground, said, “ See, this is what we poor crea¬ 
tures eat.” My surprise ceased when 1 found that an order had been 
issued by the Governor of Merdasht that no one was any more to dig for 
me, upon the plea that he could not allow excavations to be made at 
Persepolis, without the orders of his government. The fact was, he 
wanted a present himself, and was jealous that the money I had given 
to the peasants had not passed into his pocket. However, my opera¬ 
tions ceased, and I commenced making enquiries about objects of anti¬ 
quity that had not been seen or described before. I enquired of all 
ranks of persons, and was not successful in learning any thing new, 
except new names of Persian fabrication for different parts of the ruins. 
Thus in one place was the Sherbet Khoneh, or confectionary j in ano¬ 
ther the bath: here the Ferash Khoneh, or servants’ hall; there the 
