'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.' [‎212] (243/582)

212
ISPAHAN.
It was about ten o'clock when we mounted at the gate of our
palace, forming a party of about thirty persons, including the
guards who preceded, the Khans who accompanied, and the ser
vants who followed us. Mr. Armstrong, however, who was busily
employed in constructing the model of a corn-mill for the govern
ment, and whose useful labours these public attentions shown to
me had already interrupted, found means to excuse himself from
accompanying us; and, in consideration of the motives which
urged it, no one could complain. The route of our cavalcade lay
partly through the quarter of Jubarra, or Yahoudia, in which we
saw a number of very old and deserted mosques, which had before
escaped our attention. The minarets of these were different from
any others that I ever remember to have seen : they were ex
tremely lofty, constructed of plain brickwork of the best kind,
and rose like colossal pillars from the ground, gradually but
slightly tapering from the base, until about two-thirds their
height, where a termination was formed in a capital resembling
the palm-leaved capital of the Egyptian temples. Above this
was placed a smaller pillar, of less height and diameter, com
pleting the other third; so that the whole looked like a small
column rising out of a larger one : the first capital probably form
ing a gallery or the mezzuin or crier; and the second, a higher
one of the same kind; as, from the loop-holes or windows in the
walls, there was no doubt a winding passage inside up to the top.
These minarets were all lofty, mostly single, and generally of
plain brickwork; whereas, in the other quarters of Ispahan, the
minarets are all low, and generally placed in pairs on each side of
entrance gateways, being also coated over with coloured tiles; be
sides having a railed gallery, with a roofed covering at the top, in
an altogether different manner. The style of architecture in the
mosques to which these singular minarets were attached, though
Saracenic in its order, was different in its general aspect and details
from those of the other quarters of the city, and evidently of a
much more ancient date, though, from a want of sufficient leisure