SEWAN-PA-INE. 
511 
refreshments their abstinence allows. The place we had seen, 
is still known by the appellation of the Cave of the Forty 
Daughters; a presumption that the devotees spoken of were of 
the female sex, which throws the religious dedication of this 
cavern to a period anterior to the introduction of the Mahomedan 
faith. The term forty , when attributed to any collection of 
objects, is not always by these Eastern people intended to 
declare that precise number, but rather to express any indefinite 
calculation, whether of persons or things ; and, generally, with 
the hyperbolical view of insinuating that the number is beyond 
calculation. Hence, both at Ispahan and Persepolis, we hear of 
a Palace of Forty Pillars ; here, we have the Cave of Forty 
Daughters ; and in “ the Arabian Nights Tales,” we are told a 
story of Forty Thieves. 
Two farsangs terminated our western direction, by bringing 
us to the end of the high wall of mountains on the southern 
side of the valley, round which we turned our steps, pointing 
our faces almost due south, after having crossed forty little 
naiads in the way. These beautiful rivulets run rippling along 
in every direction, sparkling through the high grass, till ab¬ 
sorbed in the broader stream, they accompany its winding course 
amongst the deeper hollows of the hills. Two miles further, 
brought us to the village of Sewan-pa-ine; but its bare walls 
alone received us; the inhabitants having all withdrawn them¬ 
selves to the cooler atmosphere of the low ground, under shelter 
of their mountains and black hair-cloth tents. The thermometer 
in the shade was at 86 Fahrenheit. The fertility in the depths 
of the vale, continued without interruption to its sides; every 
inch of earth being cultivated close to the abrupt feet of the 
cliffs. The river flowed through it in a sinuous southern course. 
