280 
MOSQUE OF SULTAN KHODABUND. 
The late mollah of the place, who might have been the inter¬ 
preter, had recently paid the debt of nature: but one of the 
natives told me, from memory, that the purport of the inscrip¬ 
tions were merely to say, that that mosque had been b uilt five 
hundred and seventy- five years ago. All the proportions and 
decorations of this vast structure are in the most splendid Asiatic 
taste; but the blue, green, and golden tiles, with which’ it has 
been coated, are rapidly d isappearing ; yet enough remains to 
give an idea of the original beauty of the whole. The ruins of 
other superb mosques are still conspicuous in many par ts of the 
city; and all seem to have been on so extensive a scale, that we 
can only stand in amazement at the former magnitude of a place, 
which at present scarcely numbers three hundred families. When 
«r“ .- 
the Holstein ambassadors were in Persia, A. D. 1637, even 
then, the waning city contained six thousand people. How has 
it been reduced since, in little more than a century and a half! 
The walls of its ancient houses, and spacious gardens, cover a 
great streatch of the plain; and in some places, we find large 
black mound s of earth, w here, I imagine, t he public bat hs stood. 
Most of the village huts, which were our quarters, are built 
round the superb royal mosque, above described; forming a 
strange contrast with the venerable pile which overshadows 
them. The roofs of these lowly dwellings are a perfect half¬ 
circle, like a bee-hive, with a hole in the centre, to admit light, 
and let out the smoke; thus, in shape at least, differing from 
most other Persian villages I had seen, the roofs of which were 
either flat or of a conical form. 
Having made my arrangements for the night, in one of the 
huts, I went as usual with my Persian, Sedek Beg, to pay my 
respects to my royal host, soon after sun-set, his time of evening 
