'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎10] (41/714)

10 PERSIA
existence have gone the way of the singers who sang their praises,
and are now only a shadow and a lament. In this neighbourhood,
and in eloquent juxtaposition to these piles of modern ruin, occur
-it intervals the relics of a grander imagination and a more ancient
past Here on the plain still stands the white marble mausoleum
that" in all probability, once held the gold coffin and the corpse of
Cyrus. At no great distance the rifled sepulchre ot Darius gapes
from its chiselled hollow in the scarp of a vertical cliff. Opposite
the princely platform of Persepolis lifts its dwindling columns,
.and amid piles of debris displays the sculptured handiwork that
graced the palace of Xerxes and the halls of Artaxerxes.
I shall not be reproached if I linger awhile amid these
renowned, and often commemorated, relics of the past. They
show us that, just as mediaeval Persia was far removed
ments of from modern Persia in its pageantry and wealth, so
antiquity aric ient Persia—the Persia of Herodotus and Xenophon
was immeasurably superior to mediaeval Persia in its attributes,
and is even now more respectable in its ruin. Though in
dealing with these ancient and historic monuments I shall not
recapitulate architectural or topographical details, which can be
found better displayed in other and more technical works, I shall
yet avail myself of the latest scientific knowledge and research,
having no sympathy with those who rush through a country that
has elicited the services of profound and famous writers, and who
think the ignorant jottings of a tourist's note-book good enough to
supersede the labours of a long line of scholars and men of science.
A historian of travel who possesses any self-respect will thankfully
profit by their researches, in the spirit of the seventeenth century
editor of Tavernier, who wrote that ' he was sufficiently imbued in
his intellectuals with all due knowledge of sciences, languages,
and geography, and precedent travellers' maps and books, without
all which common travellers cannot conceive so soon and so orderly,
nor reap so much benefit for themselves or others. At the same
time he will endeavour, by the exercise of personal observation
and of honest criticism, to give an independent account of what
has passed before his own eyes.
In the extreme south-west I shall invite attention to a part of
the country where nature has been lavish of gifts that man has
alternately blessed and despised; where navigable rivers flow
through plains once enriched with a superb vegetation, though