'Narrative of a journey to the site of Babylon in 1811, now first published: memoir on the ruins; with engravings from the original sketches by the author: remarks on the topography of ancient Babylon, by Major Rennell; in reference to the memoir: second memoir on the ruins; in reference to Major Rennell's remarks: with narrative of a journey to Persepolis: now first printed, with hitherto unpublished cuneiform inscriptions copied at Persepolis: by the late Claudius James Rich, Esq., formerly the Resident of the Hon. East India Company at Bagdad. Edited by his widow.' [‎255] (398/474)

JOURNEY TO PERSEPOLIS.
255
I have now copied all that I can: there remains
for the diligence of future antiquarians the three
tablets over the first sphinxes on the top of the stair
case, and the Sassanian and cuneiform inscriptions
i at Nakshi Rustum.
The platform is of a very irregular figure, with
numberless juttings out. This arises from the
builders having accommodoted themselves entirely to
the natural hill, which greatly injures the effect.
Indeed the whole system of building is too much
broken into parts to have ever been grand as a
whole, though some parts may have been so—espe
cially the colonnade ; but in others the proportions are
both small and heavy, proceeding from the dispro
portionate application of vast mateiials, which is after
all a foolish ambition* The natural hill has in some
places been hewn down, as may be seen at the south
face of the upper platform ; and the staircase, which
descends from it to the great platform, is likewise
hewn out of the natural hill.
In the afternoon I had a troublesome and round
about ride to Nakshi Rustum, on account of the
number of canals and water-courses, derived from the
river Pavar, in the valley ; and some of which were
very disagreeable, muddy fords.
The mountains on the northern boundary of the
defile of the Pavar river form a wing of stupendous
perpendicular cliffs, which gradually slope off to a
* Nevertheless we ought to he grateful to them for
little or nothing of these ruins would have heen left, and W e should
have had no specimen of the ante-Alexandnan age.