436 VIEW OF ISPAHAN FROM THE ROOF OF THE SEFI GATE. 
the Sefi no longer found a throne in Persia;) all these places 
were wrought into bowery net-works, or treillages of gold and 
flowers, intermingled with small anacreontic paintings of men 
and women revelling in the juice of the vineyard. We are not 
ignorant of the freedom which Shah Abbas practised, and allowed, 
with regard to the convivial use of wine. But when I considered 
these depicted exaggerations of that liberty, and the common 
consequences of such complete abandonment, as they openly 
pourtray, of king and nobles to the most stupifying and im- 
bruting of vices ; and compared them with the wise ordinances of 
Shah Abbas for his people’s good, and the steadiness with which 
they were maintained by himself and his ministers, I could not, 
on any rational principle, attribute these unveiled portraitures of 
man, in his most disgraceful moments, to such a prince; to him, 
of whom the judicious Chardin wrote, that “ when Shah Abbas 
ceased to breathe, Persia ceased to prosper.” Hence, I again 
suggest, that all the grossest bacchanalian scenes found here, and 
in other royal seats of the Sefi race, are commemorations of the 
drunken orgies of Abbas the Second ; who, on these occasions, 
we hear from all quarters, gloried in his shame ; admitting high 
and low to be his boon companions. The consequences of his 
vices, sufficiently shewed their undeviating tendency, in the 
reign of his “ son, and son’s son paving the way for the con¬ 
quest of the Afghans, by the demoralization of his nobles, and 
the oppression of his people. 
From the roof of this building, whence such divers scenes of 
royal festivity, or of royal massacre, must have been beheld ; we 
had an extensive view of the city. In the days of its prosperity, 
the panorama must have been splendid. At present, with the 
exception of the palaces in the gardens to the westward, the whole 
