SHARABAN. 
237 
bulls’ galls !) for they were so far better, as to look about them 
in renovated spirits; and at last to say, they felt strong enough 
to exchange their uneasy and fractured panniers, for the saddles 
of their horses. The transfer was accordingly made ; and we 
entered the village of Sharaban about five o’clock in the morn¬ 
ing of October the 12th, in a much more respectable order than 
we had quitted that of Kizzil Rob at the preceding night. The 
distance is computed at five farsangs. 
Sharaban (or Shahr-e-Van) is a small town or village, which 
the inhabitants say, was in former times a large city more 
magnificent than Bagdad. Not a vestige of this past grandeur 
remains, though, according to D’Anville, it stands on the site of 
the ancient Apollonia; an opinion certainly corroborated by the 
tradition on the spot. The ground it covers is pretty extensive, 
and its appearance rather imposing. Like other towns and vil¬ 
lages of the pashalick, it is built without a surrounding fortifica¬ 
tion ; but each house has its own encircling high wall, entered 
by a gate; which walls, when connected in the circuit of the 
town, give the whole a demonstration of strength nearly equal 
to the circumvallation of a Persian town, bating the absence of 
towers. The general appearance has the advantage of being 
more open, from the trees and gardens which intersect the place 
in a variety of directions. Besides the date, limes grow in great 
perfection ; and farther around, wheat, barley, tobacco, and cot¬ 
ton diversified the fields. Sharaban is watered by a small 
stream running along a deep bed, whose abrupt banks at one 
part, are surmounted by a picturesque mosque, shooting up 
its grey minarets over the expanding and feathery branches of 
date and other trees. These groves spread through the town ; 
and under their shadowy boughs we found the few shops which 
