'Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia, including a journey from Bagdad by Mount Zagros, to Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, researches in Ispahan and the ruins of Persepolis, and journey from thence by Shiraz and Shapoor to the sea-shore. Description of Bussorah, Bushire, Bahrein, Ormuz, and Muscat, narrative of an expedition against the pirates of the Persian Gulf, with illustrations of the voyage of Nearchus, and passage by the Arabian Sea to Bombay.' [‎216] (247/582)

216
ISPAHAN.
had been sent to the keepers in attendance to be ready for our
reception. Assad Ullah Khan was again appointed to be our
guide, though several other Khans, with their servants, accom
panied us.
Soon after leaving our own abode, we found ourselves at the
Palace of the Chehel Sitoon, or Forty Pillars. The gardens
around this mansion, and leading towards it, are all beautiful;
the sycamores, which line the avenues, are large and ancient; the
cypresses and firs, interspersed throughout the grounds, have an
equally fine though different aspect; and the slender poplars,
bending to the breeze, give a lightness and airiness to the thickest
woods. The fountains, canals, and walks, are laid out with all
the taste and regularity of the best grounds of Europe ; and, in
short, every thing seems to have been, in its original design, as
perfect as one could have desired it. The palace itself, though
inferior to the gardens amid which it stands, is still a monument
of the luxury and splendour of the age in which it was erected.
In front is an open portico, in which three or four rows of pillars,
about six in each, support a fiat roof, or canopy ; the four central
pillars, which are placed at the angles of a square fountain, have
a device of four lions, each carved in a hard stone, for the pedes
tals; the pillars are all lofty, perhaps fifty feet in height, but
disproportionately slender ; the shaft is one solid trunk of syca
more wood, shaped octagonally round the sides, and lessening
from the base upwards, till it seems to be scarcely a foot thick
at the placing on of the capital. The capital rises in a square?
increasing its dimensions from below like an inverted pyramid,
and is filled on every side by the concave niches so peculiar
to the Saracenic architecture. As these pillars have to sup
port a roof of enormous weight, their strength is altogether in
sufficient ; and not only do their disproportionate height and
slender proportions offend the eye; but the bending of the parts
of the roof between them, threatens a speedy fall. The shafts
and capitals of these pillars are entirely covered with silvered