'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.' [‎127] (158/582)

OF TAUK-E-BOSTAN.
127
about the same height in the centre of the arch, which is of the
pure Roman form, and the sides and floor are all perfectly level.
There are, I think, no devices on the outer front of this, and the
side walls of the interior are perfectly plain. The end wall is di
vided into two compartments by a sort of moulding running along
the whole breadth of the Cave and nearly midway up the wall, so
as to divide it almost equally by a horizontal line. In the lower
one I do not remember any devices, and in the upper are, I think,
two figures, of which I have also an imperfect recollection. They
are fully as large as the life, are both standing, and executed in
alto-relievo. On each side of them is an inscription of four or
five lines each, in the character of the Sassanian medals, which
M. de Sacy has so successfully decyphered and explained*
On the left of this is the principal or larger Cave, divided from
the small one by a thick wall of rock only ; and all these objects are
included within a space of fifty yards in length. In front of them,
the stream, which springs from beneath the brick arches on the
south-east, flows along to the north-west, touching the foot of the
rock where the three sculptured figures are seen on its surface, and
being only half a dozen paces from the mouth of the larger Cave.
This stream, however, is not the Kara Soo, as has been said,f but
a mere brook, called, from the place of its source, Aub-i-Tauk-e-
Bostan, and going from the Caves south-west into that river. Its
waters were painfully cold at noon-day, and as sweet and clear as
the stream which it augments.
The great Cave is perhaps about twenty-five feet square, and
rather more than the same height. Its roof is arched, of the pure
Roman form, and, like the other, its floor and sides are perfectly
* See the 4 Antiquites de la Perse,' by Silvestre de Sacy ; from which it appears that the
Tauk-e-Bostan was excavated by Baharam, the founder of Kermanshah, as the inscription in
Pehlivi, translated by De Sacy, has the name of Vararan, or Varahan, which approaches the
Roman name of Baharam, who is Varanes the Fourth, of Latin history.—See also Malcolm s
Persia, vol. i. p. 113.
t Rousseau's Journey from Bagdad to Kermanshah.