TOMB OF SHEIK SADI, 
697 
place of Hafiz. There, a cypress or two lingered near the spot, 
and the decaying towers of the mosque of Shah Mirza Hamza, in 
its neighbourhood, bespoke some fellowship in neglect, as well 
as in former reverence. Here, a solitary square structure, per¬ 
fectly bare without, and within planted with a few low shrubs 
and vegetables, was opened to me as the garden and sepulchre of 
the venerable Sadi. Three or four miserable wretches, who crept 
out from the adjacent rocks, are the owners of this humble sub¬ 
stitute for “ the olive and the bay, 5 ’ planted by Kerim Khan. 
In one corner of the quadrangle, in a sort of vaulted chamber, 
they shewed me a small marble sarcophagus, which covered the 
bones of the poet. Neither the world’s pomps nor contempts 
could sweeten nor imbitter his repose ; but, to the spectator, the 
desolation that reigned there would have been more than melan¬ 
choly, if “ the surcease of this life trammelled up the conse¬ 
quence ; and the be all, was to end all.” The volume of his 
works, which had been fastened to his tomb like those of Hafiz, 
was not even to be heard of; and, so deserted is the spot, no 
public burying-ground calling people towards it, few others than 
strangers, and those foreigners, ever think of visiting the shrine 
of Sadi. 
When returned to the outside of the building, I was shewn 
into a vaulted apartment, under the level of the ground ; and 
descending again, about twenty or thirty steps, they led me to 
the brink of a stream, clear as crystal; and so contrived as to 
flow over a deepened basin in the rock, yet containing some of 
the finny race, whose ancestors the poet of tenderest humanities 
had protected in this his grotto of meditation. It was his fa¬ 
vourite spot of retirement; and, reclining by the cool wave, he 
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VOL. I. 
