ABHAR. 
207 
is excellent, for when the camel is coming end on (as the sailors would 
say) and only his two legs are seen, it is difficult to distinguish him 
from an ostrich, but when seen at a distance on the desert in large 
numbers, it would be almost impossible to discriminate the one from 
the other, except perhaps by relative size. 
Abhar, our next station, may be called a town, in comparison with 
the other places which we saw since our departure from Casvin j and 
when at a distance, presents an appearance of greater consequence 
than when it is more closely inspected. Arising above the trees are 
seen some ruined walls, which occupy an height called by the natives 
Caleh Darab^ or the Castle of Darius. Their materials are large mud 
bricks, mixed up with straw, baked in the sun, the same which I 
remarked at Rey, at the Atesh Gah at Ispahan, and the same also per¬ 
haps as those of Babylon. These circumstances will give greater force to 
the reasoning of Major Rennel, who, as far as I can judge, only wanted 
the attestation of some existing remains of antiquity on the spot, 
to prove it to be the ancient Habor, one of the three places to 
which the tribes of Reubon, Gad and Manasseh were sent into 
captivity. * 
The appearance of the King’s palace at Sultanieh, situated on a con¬ 
spicuous eminence, rising from the plain, with a small village close to 
it, and the town of Sultanieh about two miles from it, is a scene like 
that which Xenophon relates the Greeks to have found not far from the 
Tygris. j- The modern Kings of Persia have palaces in many parts of 
their dominions, whither they resort for the climate or for the chace. 
To these palaces are attached villages in which provisions J are collected 
for the use of the court, as soon as the motions of the King are decided. 
The King’s principal summer palace is Sultanieh; besides that he has 
others at Ojan near Tabriz, at the Ragh-i-Feen, at Jajrood near 
Teheran, at Cheshmeh Ali in Khorassan, at the Bagh Zemerood near 
Demawend, at Zavieh on the road to Hamadan, and many more of 
which it would be too tedious to give the enumeration. 
*■ IlenneU’s Geo. Syst. of Herodotus, p. 389. 
f Anabasis, lib. 3. c. 4. 
J Ibid. 
