208 
NEUTRAL GROUND. 
solid arch; the style of which was of any other origin than a 
Persian architect of any age. The stones which compose it, are 
large and finely hewn. A great part of the architrave, and also 
a small running ornament below the springs of the semi-circle, 
remain undemolished, and mark it to have been the work of 
western artists. Its span is about fifteen feet; and the depth 
inward, about twelve. A very large surface of square stone, 
composed chiefly of the cliff of the mountain, covers the middle 
of the space which forms the back wall of the arch. On this 
sort of tablet, I do not doubt an inscription has once been 
visible; but the mutilating hatchets of the destroyers have not 
left the trace of a letter. From this point, a couple of miles of 
continued descent brought us into a very wide vale, stretching 
north and south, and traversed by innumerable rivulets flowing 
from the Alpine chains on both sides. The intermediate space 
was chiefly pasture ground, filled with droves of horses scattered 
about in all the picturesque freedom of nature ; while the picture 
they presented, could not but recall the scenes of old time in 
the more classic plains on the other side of the .frontier ridge of 
mountain. When we had descended from that line of demarca¬ 
tion, which there limits the Persian empire, and had come down 
into the vale I have just mentioned, we found ourselves on a 
kind of neutral ground; one of those portions of the globe, 
which, whenever they occur, are usually inhabited by the refuse 
of each country on which they border. We traversed it in a 
westerly direction, till the road again entered the defiles of the 
mountains due west. During our march through this latter 
pass, we forded a shallow river running to the south-west. At 
some distance onward, we re-crossed the same stream over a 
very respectable bridge; and soon after entered the spacious 
