PALACE OF FORTY PILLARS. 
607 
before, has cruelly defaced the middle series, after having entirely 
demolished the best part of the row above; but this lowest 
range, happily for the antiquarian, has till very lately been 
concealed, probably for ages, under heaps of ruins at its base. 
In Le Bruyn’s time, the heads only of the figures were visible; 
but some of the gentlemen belonging to one of our late embassies 
in Persia, set men to work, and were successful in bringing this 
more perfect specimen to the eye of observation. 
I made a drawing of nine of the figures that are in the second 
row, and another of seven, which belong to the lowest; they are 
both engraved on the same plate, where each particular that I 
have mentioned may be seen in the copy. I now proceed to 
describe the opposite wing of this magnificent approach, and 
shall defer any remarks on the subjects of its decorations until 
I have gone through the details of the whole. 
This wing, like the other, is divided into three lines of bas- 
relief, but each is subdivided into compartments, by a large 
cypress-tree. Vast fragments of this also lie on the ground 
beneath; the higher range of figures, like those opposite, 
presenting no more than twelve inches of their original surface, 
but enough is left to shew, at the commencement of the pro¬ 
cession, the lower parts of men and horses. The number of 
groups which occupy the spaces in this range between the 
cypresses, are six. The figures are exceedingly broken, but 
still I could discern that every man carried something in his 
hand like an offering, and that almost all the parties had a horse 
in their train. From most eastern historians we learn, that 
animal was as valuable a present to the monarchs of Persia in 
those days, as it is considered at present. A continuation of 
these remnants, becoming more explicable, but not increasing in 
