I 
HAMADAN, THE ANCIENT ECBATANA. gj 
my Ispahan mehmandar some time before dawn, to apprise the 
vizier of Hamadan of my approach; that I might meet no avoid¬ 
able delays on my arrival, with regard either to my quarters, or 
the objects of my journey. The country we passed over to-day, 
like that of yesterday, was a regular inclined plane ; and being 
covered in the same way as the former, with minor hills and 
dales, it was not till we had surmounted the summit of the last 
acclivity of this sort, and were within two miles only of the 
place itself, that we had any glimpse of the town. But from 
this elevated spot, it lay before me; and I may truly make use 
of that word, to express the effect of its appearance. I had not 
expected to see Ecbatana as Alexander found it; neither in the 
superb ruin in which Timour had left it; but, almost uncon¬ 
sciously to myself, some indistinct ideas of what it had been, 
floated before me ; and when I actually beheld its remains, it 
was with the appalled shock of seeing a prostrate dead body, 
where I had anticipated a living man, though drooping to decay. 
Orontes, indeed, was there, magnificent, and hoary headed; the 
funeral monument of the poor corse beneath. Having, for a few 
moments, gazed at the venerable mountain, and on the sad va¬ 
cuum at its base; what had been Ecbatana, being now shrunk to 
comparative nothingness ; I turned my eye on the still busy scene 
of life, which occupied the adjacent country ; the extensive plain 
of Hamadan, and its widely extending hills. On our right, the 
receding vale was varied, at short distances, with numberless 
castellated villages rising from amidst groves of the noblest 
trees; while the great plain itself, stretched northward and east¬ 
ward to such far remoteness, that its mountain boundaries ap¬ 
peared like clouds upon the horizon. This whole tract seemed 
one carpet of luxuriant verdure, studded with hamlets, and wa- 
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