PASS FROM PERSIA INTO THE ANCIENT ASSYRIA. 207 
of a wide ravine. It was built by Mahmoud Ali Mirza, and is 
the last halting-place ere the traveller quits the Persian frontier, 
and enters on the long famed land of Assyria. It is, in general, 
called the Shah’s Adda Khaun; meaning the caravansary of the 
king’s son. It is reckoned four farsangs ftom Karund. 
October 3d. — Our horses were saddled this morning by five 
o’clock, when we proceeded in the same kind of mountain-road 
for nearly two hours, at which time we diverged to the north, 
leaving the ravine, and crossing the intersecting tongues of the 
different rocky hills, which here shoot from the western chain of 
Zagros, and traversed our way. The road was rough ; and the 
bordering scenery, that which usually accompanies these irre¬ 
claimable tracts of nature, of the wildest picturesque character : 
huge promontories of shelving cliffs at various distances shot 
out from the hanging woods, and beetled over the road in 
heavy, threatening precipices. After travelling about a farsang 
through this Alpine pass, we saw it expand into a fine valley ; 
on one side of which our way lay due west, winding along the 
abrupt declivities 'of a mountain. The road was broken and 
stony, but shewed traces of a condition that marked it to have 
been a work of former ages. On my observing this to our guide, 
(for from the time we left Kermanshah, a person of that descrip¬ 
tion became indispensable,) he told me, that a little onward I 
should see a building of the ancient kings, which might cor¬ 
roborate my observation. He added, that it was called Tackt-i- 
Gara, the Throne of the Mountain ; and had been erected by 
Khosroo Purviz, as a travelling shelter for his beloved Shirene. 
It will be remembered that in those times, both Assyria and 
Babylonia were within the lines of the Persian empire. 
On approaching the spot, I found it consist of a lofty and 
