Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/47
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CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS
that there was ' not as much as any bookes except a few pamphlets mtreatinir of Holy Confession, and Navarrs Summes which the monkes of St. Augustine use.' In April 1618, he set out for Ispahan, and reached the bridae across the ' Bradamir,' which river lie had no doubt was the ancient Araxes. A league further on he came to the ruins of ' Clielminara,' of which he had heard so much fnmi Gouvea. He did not hesitate to identify them at once witli ' those hu<>e wilde buildings of the castle and Palace of Persepolis ' ; and he appears to have been tlie first to make this identiiication.^ Gouvea, as we liavc* seen, liad no doubt that Shiraz was built on the site of Perse])olis. Cartwright, to whose journey we have ah'eady alluded, was so convinced of the same that he heads a chapter 'Description of Sieras, ancient Persepolis,' and adds : ' This is the city Alexander burnt at the request of a drunken strumpet, himself beino- the iirst president in thatwofuU misery.'- Don Garcia is warm in his praise of ' this rare yea and onely monument of the world (^whicli farre exceedeth all the rest of the world's miracles that we liave seen or heard ofT).' He found only twenty of the pillars left standinix, but there were broken remains of many others close by ; and half a league distant in the plahi he noted another, and still farther ofT two short ones. He mentions the numerous bas-reliefs that ' doe seele the front, the sides and the statlier parts of this buildhig.' The human fi^nres are ' deckt with a very comely clotlnnn* and clad in the same fashion which the A'^enetian maixniiicoes uoe in : that is aownes down to the heeles witli wide sleeves, with round Hat caps, their hair spred to the shoulders and notable long beards.' ' See the letter of Don Garcia in Ptirchasy Ilia PihjnuicSy ii. 1 r);34. ^ ' Tho Preacher H YVwr^'/.s', penned by J. C, sometime student in Magdalen
