VIEW FROM THE PLATFORM. 
683 
the descriptions, nor at the reply of Bagoas, whose shrewd 
answer reconciles both, and probably gave the first hint to the 
monarch of his officer’s delinquency. The homely urn which 
Q. Curtius mentions, must have been the stone soros , that 
formerly contained the golden coffin of Cyrus, and into which 
the sacred relics would be cast after their more superb covering 
was rent away. 
With a head full of these recollections, of Cyrus who had 
planted this empire, and of Alexander who had torn it from its 
rock, I turned from the tenantless tombs, and as desolated 
metropolis. All were equally silent; all were alike the monu¬ 
ments of a race of heroes, whose spirits live in their actions; 
and of two princes at least, whose existence was foreshewn, and 
their names stampt on the imperishable tablets of Holy Writ. 
The line of mountains, which rise behind the platform of 
Persepolis, divide the celebrated plain of Merdasht, and stretching 
nearly three farsangs to the south-east, terminate in that part of 
the vale which I noticed soon after my leaving Sewan-pa-ine as 
opening magnificently towards the rising sun. The left branch 
of the Kur-aub (whose stream, in some of its channels, had accom¬ 
panied us all the way from Mourg-aub,) flows through the Persepo- 
litan plain, affording ample sources of irrigation to the peasantry 
for many miles ; till it makes its escape by falling into the Araxes, 
not far from the close of the Rahmet chain of hills. Con¬ 
sequently, the vale of Merdasht may be said to describe an 
oval, pointing east and west, lying between the western and 
eastern branches of the Kur-aub, and the Araxes flowing to the 
south. 
On viewing the opposite country from the great platform, the 
mountains to the south-west do not appear more elevated than 
4 s 2 
