RASSAL HILLS. 
497 
corruption of that simpler species of idolatry, his worshippers 
had followed the impulse of nature in seeking their luminous 
deity in his own unobstructed temple, the “ empyrean sky and 
as naturally made their altars the mountain-top, or some ele¬ 
vated ranges of stone in imitation ; openly, because fearlessly, 
paying their adorations in the blaze of day. But when foreign 
faiths were introduced by the caprice of successive tyrants, and 
temples began to be built to idols of every description, then the 
intended restorer of the old religion found it necessary to seek 
security even in the bowels of the earth, darkness being the 
friend of uncertainty. Fire there stood to him in the place of 
the sun, and afterwards shared his worship ; by its light he de¬ 
vised his doctrines, and initiated his followers ; and thence, the 
Zend-avesta in one hand, and a flaming censer in the other, he 
issued forth, with all the imposing clouds of superstition around 
him, to rekindle the altars of Mithra. It is not improbable, 
then, that the caves I saw before me were those in which he 
and his disciples dwelt; and that in some of them the vast 
volumes were prepared, which Darius Hystaspes afterwards de¬ 
posited in the sacred vaults of Persepolis. 
After following the Rassal Hills for near an hour, we ascended 
another range, called the Joshoo, from the summits of which I 
had a full view of the extensive flat country beneath. It lay an 
immense expanse of trackless white to the very shore of the 
lake, which stretched its black unfrozen waters from side to side, 
like an enormous dark abyss, breaking the smooth level of the 
plain. Our eyes suffered greatly in descending towards it, from 
the completely unshadowed reflection of the dazzling snow on its 
intermediate surface. The road lay N. 40° W., passing several 
large villages, while every downward step unfolded the plain to 
3 s 
VOL. II, 
