'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from January 1847 to May 1849. Edited by the Secretary. Volume VIII.' [‎269] (378/496)

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as the boundary of their respective empires in this part, and a garrison
formerly occupied the spot. We were informed,, with great gravity, by
a greybeard of our party, that an old well, now filled with rubbish, was
actually stored with charcoal for the delineation of the frontier line when
the last treaty was framed ; nor did our laughing and incredulity at all
disconcert him.
At 7*5, remounting, we pushed on at a more rapid pace through the
plain, in the direction of the Kirrind gardens, which bore from Sar-mil
129°. We were met on our way by many of the chief people of the
place, headed by two of the late Governor’s sons, who managed their
horses with all the ease and dexterity of accomplished horsemen, although
the eldest is barely twelve years of age.
At 8*40 we turned abruptly to the North, towards the town, which
now shewed itself seated in a deep and romantic gorge of the heights of
Zagros, and 9h. found us located in the best room of the Governor’s house,
surrounded by all the luxuries the place afforded. The owner of the
mansion is however not here, but a state prisoner at the capital, Teheran.
The case of this individual is a harsh one, but by no means solitary in
the annals of Persian despotism. About three years ago he left Kirrind
for a neighbouring village, and during his absence the Amir of Kirman-
horn,—we have the mode of the Mithraic worship distinctly characterised almost in
tiie words of that author himself: and the houses of the high places which Josiah
destroyed cannot but signify the temples that had become dedicated to the new
doctrines attending the worship of the elements.
Robin, (Art. IV., Chap. IV, Rook IV., of his Ant. Hist.) in quoting from
Xenophon, notices the ambiguity of the ancient authors, but would also lead us
to suppose that temples were inconsistent with the right worship of the deity, who,
according to the tenets of Zoroaster, should be adored in the open air ; and relates
that Xerxes wantonly destroyed the Grecian temples as being incompatible with
ordained observances: yet he subsequently admits that one of the great effects of
the reformation of Zoroaster was the institution of temples in which the sacred
fire was carefully preserved.
*
We are aware, at the same time, that the destruction of the Grecian edifices took
place when Xerxes made his inroads into Greece ; for we have authentic accounts
of the barbarous retaliation that Alexander the Great, in a fit of intoxication,
practiced after the fall of Persepolis. The reasons, therefore, that induced Xerxes
to raze the temples of Greece, must be assigned, I think, to the acts of the
iconoclast rather than be viewed in the same category as Xenophon,—for Zoroas
ter, although we are ignorant of the precise period of his advent, is well known to
have flourished long before the reign of Xerxes,—indeed in an age prior perhaps
to the Median, if not even anterior to the Assyrian monarchy: we may consequent
ly presume that the monarch was a follower of the reformed religion, and perhaps
a frequenter of these esteemed edifices, whose existence, “ ab initio,” appears to
have been essentially requisite to the full working of the system.