'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.' [‎139] (170/582)

TO BISITOON AND KENGAWAR.
139
tance from it; yet there now intervened between us and that
range a second inferior mass of hills, forming a boundary on
our right. Many villages were still seen, though the soil now
seemed less fertile and less cultivated than before.
In about four hours after our departure from the city walls,
and two and a half after our crossing the Choaspes, we turned off
the road a little on our right, to drink at a spring of water in a
dell of fine turf grass. In the way to this, we crossed over a large
heap of ruins, which seemed to have been the site of an ancient
castle. There had been evidently an inner citadel, which was
about a hundred feet in diameter, and several portions of the
square bastions, of unbaked brick-work, were still preserved in
their original place. The form of this inner citadel appeared
nearly circular in its present state, and could be traced all round ;
the centre of it was hollow, or deeper than the walls themselves,
but seemed to have been originally an open space unoccupied by
buildings. There were evident appearances of two enceintes, or
outer walls, at equal distances, surrounding the inner citadel; and
from the fragments of brick and stone scattered beyond these,
there might once have been still more. The whole of this stood
but a few yards on the right of the high road; and immediately
opposite to it, on the left, was a burying-ground of the peasants,
in which were seen fragments of columns, and large blocks of
hewn stone. These, the peasants whom we met and questioned
on the subject, told us, were brought from the opposite ruins,
which they called Dey Seboo, and spoke of as a place of great
antiquity ; but we could learn no tradition regarding its history,
or the age of its destruction.
From hence we continued our way about east-north-east, the
rays of the sun being scorchingly hot, the sky a deep blue, with
scattered streaks of white clouds, and the wind a perfect gale from
the south-west, though it had been a dead calm from sunrise
until near noon. In about two hours more, gradually turning
round the foot of the mountain of Bisitoon in a north-easterly
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