'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.' [‎59] (90/582)

BY THE PASS OF THE ARCH.
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of no determined order,—having the plain lines of the Doric, with
a sort of chain band or fillet at the setting on of the capital on the
shaft, but all the rest is entirely devoid of ornament.
By the side of this arched recess, a large space of the rock
had been planed away on the face of the mountain, probably for
an inscription. It was of an oblong form, and from twelve to fif
teen feet in length, by six to eight feet in height. It was just of
the same size and form, and placed in the same relative situation
on the side of the rock, overlooking the highway, as the tablet on
the Roman road at the Nahr-el-Kelb, or river Lycus, in Syria, con
taining a Latin inscription in honour of the individual who pro
jected and executed the road over the promontory there. This
was, no doubt, intended for a similar purpose here, but I could
discover no traces of any inscription now visible; and from the
surface of the tablet being itself still smooth, I should conceive
that it had never been engraved on, rather than that it had been
once written and since obliterated.
To what period these works may be assigned, an examination
of the early histories of expeditions into these countries will best
determine. This range of mountains is the Zagros of antiquity,
which separated Persia from Assyria; and as the pass here is
now the only one practised in this part of the chain, and contains
the vestiges of a once noble road, it is not improbable but that it
might have been the one marched over by Alexander on his way
from Ecbatana to Babylon; and from the known fondness of that
conqueror for great public works, of which his footsteps have left
as many traces as those of other great men do of devastation, it is
likely enough that he either made the road himself, or consider
ably improved it, and that the arch and tablet here were intended
to commemorate his munificence. #
* Alexander, after passing the Tigris, on his march towards the pountry of the Uxians,
was obstructed by the difficulty of the passes, which were all guarded by Madates, a Persian
general related to Darius, and commanding a strong and well-disciplined army. He was
conducted, however, by an inhabitant of the country, through such a strait difficult pathway
I 2