CUSTOM OF WATCHING THE DEAD. 
565 
monarch should devote himself to the duty, and be the guardian of 
his remains. The chief eunuch of Darius Hystaspes passed the 
last seven years of his life in the tomb of his master: and the usage 
of such gloomy vigils is still to be traced amongst the existing 
followers of that prince’s faith ; the Parsees of Yezd, and those 
of India, always placing a watch in the sepulchre of their dead, 
who never quits the spot till he is relieved by another; or more 
frequently remains there, till he himself dies. So strict are they in 
this duty, the sentinel must not leave his post for any purpose 
whatever, not even to see his dearest relations ; every thing must 
be taken to him by others; and those he wishes to see, must 
go to him, for he cannot come to them. A most melancholy 
entombment alive. And when we consider him seated alone, 
from year to year, in that narrow and dismal cell, the walls 
darkened to the hue of perpetual midnight by the gradually 
collecting smoke from the lamp, which it is the business of his 
life to gaze upon and watch, that no breath of air should 
extinguish it; when we think of the cold gleam it casts on his 
only companion, the ceared-up body of his dead master; one 
cannot imagine a more gloomy scene, or one more calculated to 
craze the senses of a poor imprisoned wretch. 
On quitting the last bas-relief, a very few paces brought me 
to the termination of the rocks to the west; at which angle 
they take an abrupt turn to the north, but soon bend round with 
an amphitheatrical sweep to the westward again ; whence they 
join the high cliffs commanding the passes that lead into the 
Ispahan road by the way of Imaum Zada Ismael: and in this curve 
they also form a boundary to the north-western side of the luxu¬ 
riant plain of Merdasht. I skirted the mountains on my right a 
little way, to see if any more relics were to be found $ and I had 
