'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.' [‎140] (171/582)

240 FROM KERMANSHAH
direction, we approached towards the khan of that name, and
entered a small but beautiful plain, on the edge of which it stood.
Just opposite to the khan, at about a furlong to the north
west, and on the left of the road, we remarked that a large tablet
had been smoothed away in the face of the mountain's cliff, which
we turned off the road to examine. It was too near the high
way for me to suppose that there would be any thing new to
discover ; yet, while we were approaching it, I indulged the idea
of our possibly finding there the colossal figure of Semiramis,
attended by her hundred guards, as described by the ancients to
have been here sculptured in the rock. The mountain rose in a
perfect perpendicular from the plain to the height of about
two thousand feet; and if there were any part of it from whence
this Eastern Queen could have ascended to the summit upon her
baggage, which was piled up for the occasion, as mentioned by
historians, it was likely to have been here. #
* The following; passage from Diodorus Siculus will show the nature of the undertakings
entered into by this magnificent Queen ;—
<e When Semiramis had finished all her works, she marched with a great army into Media,
and encamped near to a mountain called Bagistan; there she made a garden twelve furlongs
in compass. It was in a plain champaigne country, and had a great fountain in it, which
watered the whole garden. Mount Bagistan is dedicated to Jupiter, and towards one side of
the garden has steep rocks seventeen furlongs from the top to the bottom. She cut out a
piece of the lower part of the rock, and caused her own image to be carved upon it; and a
hundred of her guards, that were lanceteers, standing round about her. She wrote likewise
in Synac letters upon the rock, that Semiramis ascended from the plain to the top of the
mountain, by laying the packs and fardels of the beasts that followed her, one upon another.
" From hence she marched towards Ecbatana, and arrived at the Mountain Zarcheum, which
being many furlongs in extent, and full of steep precipices and craggy rocks, there was no
passing but by long and tedious windings and turnings. To leave therefore behind her an
eternal monument of her name, and to make a short cut for her passage, she caused the rock
to be hewn down, and the valleys to be filled up with earth ; and so, in a short time, at a vast
expense laid the way open and plain, which to this day is called Semiramis's Way.
' Marching away from hence, she came to Chaone, a city of Media, where she encamped
upon a rising ground, from whence she Wok notice of an exceeding great and high rock, where
she made another very great garden, in the middle of the rock, and built upon it stately houses
a mv r.?' W , m ght b0th ha¥e a del « htful P ro5 P ect the garden, and view the
staved be ^ . beW in ^ P'™- Being much delighted with this place, she
stayed here a considerable time, giving „p herself to all kinds of pleasures and delights ; for