'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.' [‎434] (465/582)

434 VOYAGE FROM BUSHIRE,
all the fire-temples that I have seen throughout Persia, which were
unequivocally the remains of early ages, were mere altars, in the
open air, fitted for retaining fire on their summits ; and some of
them, particularly those at Naksh-e-Rustan, near Persepolis, not
more than two or three feet square, and others near Ispahan, but
very little larger. Captain Maude of the navy, who saw both
the Tower of Belus and this edifice at Firouzabad, assured Mr.
Williams, his companion, that they resembled each other both
in size, form, and materials ; but if so, it could not be this
building, with three immense domes ; nor the square edifice men
tioned by Kinnier, as differing in form and style from any around
it, and built of hewn stone, linked together with clamps of iron;
nor the stone pillar, one hundred and fifty feet in height, and
twenty in diameter at the base; which are said by this writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping.
to be the only antiquities worthy of remark in the plain of
Firouzabad, and which have certainly no resemblance to any
of the remains at Babylon.
What is more to the present purpose, however, and what
must draw us back from this excursion from the shore, is that
in describing the modern town of Firouzabad as an inconsi
derable place, the same author says, that the water of the river
which flows through the plain here, is absorbed in the culti
vation of the land. We must resort, therefore, to the former
supposition, that if no fresh stream descended to the sea in the
time of Alexander any more than now, the inlet of the Khore
of Umm-el-Goorm was characterised by his admiral as a river,
as narrow creeks of the sea are even now frequently called rivers
by the most experienced and scientific sailors and hydrographers
of the present day.
Nov. <21st.— The winds still continued light and variable,
though chiefly from the eastern quarter, and our progress was
accordingly slow. We had seen few fish, and no weeds in the
course of our voyage, but great varieties of the substance called
by sailors blubber, and a number of sea-snakes, ringed black and