'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.' [‎231] (262/582)

PALACE OF OUR RESIDENCE.
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and closed stalls within, extensive kitchens, and other domestic
offices, were attached to these ; and, within all, was a spacious
court, of nearly a thousand feet square, with empty fountains,
broken pedestals, portions of a fine stone pavement that covered
the whole, a range of noble buildings round the sides, and a
square pile of more costly ones in the centre, all now deserted
and in ruins. This, we were told, was once a royal harem, in
which were immured upwards of three hundred of the most beau-
tiful Georgian girls, besides wives and slaves of other countries ;
and the magnificence of the establishment, the richness of its
gilded arches, domes, and walls, induced us to credit all that could
be said of it in its original perfection^
* One of the oldest and best accounts of Ispahan, soon after the period of Shah Abbas's
government, is given by Sir Thomas Herbert, an English traveller, who visited it in 1627, and
parts of whose description are so curious as to be worth transcribing, especially as his book
is not now so easy of access to the general reader. He says :—
' The imperial city of Spahawn is in thirty-two degrees thirty-nine minutes north ; is seated
in the kingdom of Parthia, in a fair plain and pleasant horizon. It is by some called Spaan,
and by others Spahan and Hispahan, as their several dialects concorded.
• It is a city of as great extent as fame, and as ancient as famous, and no less proud than
ancient. At this time triumphing over those once more royal cities, Babylon, Ninive, Shu-
shan, Ecbatan, Perssepolis, Arsatia, and Nabarca.
4 This city was in her Infancy called Dura; (but whether in that Dura, where the great
Assyrian monarch, Nebuchadnezzar, erected his golden colosse, I know it not;) but this is
known, that it was called by the ancient Greeks Hecatompylos, from its hundred gates; for
Hecatompolis was meant by the Craetan isle, which had so many cities.
' The boasting Persians named her, for her bigness, Half the World; and this greatness
of hers was long ago, for these Scythopersse know her no longer, then called Spawhawn*
which has no signification. To say truth, she is beautiful and ancient; her circuit may be
nine miles, and in that the better half is gardens.
' The city is round, like Paris ; its circuit, I have said, about nine English miles; her
inhabitants, 300,000 souls, at most. The chief ornaments of the city are the Mydan, or
great market; the Hummums, or hot-housesthe mosques, the King s palaces, and the
gardens.
' The Mydan is in the heart of the city, and, to say truth, all the bravery, concourse,
wealth, and trade, are comprised in her. It is built quadrangular, though of unequal angles :
from north to south, is seven hundred and seventy-five of my paces; from east to west, two
hundred, but, accounting the aisle to the north issuing, is at least a thousand.
• It is built in form of our Royal Exchange, with four aisles and a court within, called the
2 G 4