'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.' [‎234] (265/582)

234
ISPAHAN.
sexes, are seen, with portraits of Jemslieed,* and other distin
guished ancients, and of Jengiz Khan, and some other moderns.
The portrait of the King himself occupies the chief place in every
apartment: sometimes represented as seated on the chair or throne
of state; at others, reclining in the divah, surrounded by his sons
and officers of court. The portraits are all alike, and are said to
be very faithful: they are executed as well as any of the older
paintings of Ispahan. All these rooms being newly carpeted,
the work fresh, and every thing in perfect order, there is greater
pleasure in witnessing this effort of recent labour than in tra
versing the decayed halls of more splendid days; though almost
every part of the modern works, both in the architecture and the
details, bespeaks a decline of art in the country.
The present monarch has resided at Ispahan at three different
periods, for a short time only ; but though he admires the situa
tion, the climate, the productions, and the former greatness of
eight refulgent orbs, the eleven hundred names of God, and the honour of his prophet Ma
homet, for this rebellion he would chastise them bravely, cut off forty thousand of their heads,
to raise a pillar of terror and admiration, as a ready sacrifice unto Mahomet.
' After much ado, he conquers them, ransacks the city, kills a thousand of them, and,
mindful of his oath, gives order to behead forty thousand. A lamentable cry was raised,
and much entreaty used, but to small purpose. The vow of the Persians never alters, nor
could he be dissuaded, till the Mufti, or sacred messenger, assures him, Mahomet by revela
tion told him, his oath might be dispensed with, so forty thousand were beheaded, no matter
what; to which, at length, he is content to, whereupon a general massacre of all sorts of beast
executed, the harmless often suffering for the nocent; and this monument of merciless
mercy was reared higher than any mosque in that city, though now grown ruinous.
' A like trophy was built by cruel Mustapha Bassaw, general for. the Great Turk, Amu-
rath the Third, who with a hundred thousand men entered Persia, and was repulsed by Sultan
Tocomack, the Persian general, where, in the Caldaran plains, thirty-thousand Turks lost their
lives, and only eight thousand Persians, of whose heads Mustapha made a monument for his
dear-bought victory, and horror to the Persians.' Pages 82 91.
A singular representation is given, in an engraving, of this obelisk, or monument, com
posed of human skulls, some parts of which remained to a period within the memory of per
sons still living in Ispahan ; but every trace of it is now fortunately obliterated.
* Jemsheed, the Alfred of the Persians, to whom all great works are attributed, is said to
have divided his subjects into four classes : the second of which, or the warriors, were called
Nessereeans. -History of Persia, p. 206. Can the Nessereeah of Kerrund, and of the moun
tains in Syria, have any relation to these ?