"رحلات في آشور، ميديا، وبلاد فارس، بما في ذلك رحلة من بغداد مروراً بجبل زاغروس وصولاً إلى حمدان، في أكباتانا القديمة، والبحوث في أصفهان وأطلال برسبوليس، ورحلة منها مروراً بشيراز وشابور وصولاً إلى ساحل البحر. وصف البصرة، بوشهر، البحرين، هرمز، ومسقط، وسرد لحملة ضد قراصنة الخليج العربي، مع رسومات توضيحية لرحلة بحرية لنيرتشوس، والمرور ببحر العرب إلى بومباي. [‎١‎١‎٧] (٥٨٢/١٤٨)

OF TAUK-E-BOSTAN.
117
ment of the present T " It was plain indeed, in all he said or did,
that the philosophy of the Dervish and his school was entirely
comprised in that verse of Moore's :
" Pleasure, thou only good on earth!
One little hour resign'd to thee,
Oh ! by my Lais' lip, 'tis worth
A sage's immortality.''
Our conference ended, however, in his yielding to my wishes;
and we accordingly left the ladies to other visitors, and pursued
our journey, though for an hour at least in unbroken silence.
In less than an hour after our leaving the walls of Kermanshah
we came to the stream of the Kara Soo, still retaining its Turkish
name, implying the Black Water. Its banks are low and shelving,
its bed dark and pebbly, and its stream beautifully transparent;
so that at the least distance from its banks its purity alone gives
it a cast of blackness, which well sustains its name. The breadth
of the river here is not more than fifty horse paces, its depth
about three or four feet, and the rate of its stream little more than
two miles an hour. We found some peasants on its beach collect
ing the small round pebbles of its bed, and loading them on their
beasts to carry them in sacks to the town. On enquiring the pur
pose to which these were applied, we learned that they were used
by the bakers of Kermanshah, who laid their thin sheets of bread
on beds of the pebbles, heated nearly to redness, and smoothed by
small rollers like those used on the gravel walks of an European
garden.
The course of the Kara Soo is in this place from north-west
to south-east, though it afterwards bends to the southward, in the
plain, at the distance of only a mile or two from this ford. Its
source is said to be also in a north-west direction, about three
days' journey off, at the foot of the mountains of Koordistan ; and
it flows from hence southerly through Khuzistan, passing by
Shooster, and discharges itself ultimately into the Euphrates,