'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.' [‎144] (175/582)

1^4 FROM KERMANSHAH
Dervish concluded, as he said, that I was in pursuit of the Phi
losopher's Stone, when he saw that, on recovering from these falls,
I still persevered in trying to scale the craggy cliff again.
On getting as near to this object of my pursuit as was prac
ticable, I perceived a smaller tablet than the lower one, sur
mounted by the figure of a winged circle or globe, with something
hanging from it downward; the whole resembling the emblem by
which the Holy Ghost is sometimes represented under the form of
a dove, with expanded wings and tail, but no head. This singular
emblem here overshadowed a line of about thirteen human figures,
half the size of life, well sculptured, and well preserved, and ap
pearing to represent the bringing in of bound captives, and their
presentation to a conquering chief.
Below this sculptured story were several oblong and perpen
dicular tablets, filled with inscriptions, in small, thick, square
letters, void of curve, and more like Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac, or
Sanscrit, than any of the other ancient Oriental characters. The
foot of this was perfectly inaccessible for many yards; and, at the
distance from whence I saw it, I could make out nothing distinct,
except that the tablets were planed smoothly down, and their sur
faces then covered with letters of some kind or other. If this was
writing, as I believed it to be, there could not have been less than
two or three hundred lines in all the different compartments;
but of this, much was injured by time, though the figures above
were still remarkably distinct.
Whether either, or which of these, related to the visits of Se-
miramis to this place, it was not easy to decide. The situation
and the style of the designs would rather justify the belief of
these sculptures being those before adverted to; while the num
ber of the figures and their apparent occupation are at variance
with the account given of the sculptures in question by the
ancients.
This mountain of Bisitoon is thought, by most of the learned,
to correspond with the mountain of Baghistan; in which, accord-