One night, as we sat cosy at thi telegraph station, that hung to th a scraggy bill, while a bawling gale we roaring bull-like between the rocks, was heard a nasty, snappy, yelping sound, half like the bark'of a whipped dog and half like the squall of x spanked youngster, Tt was the the call of a pack of hyenas. Of course the hyenas spoke Persian, By listening carefully it was distinguishable, they eried: "Is he better yet? is he better yet?" And the curs of te village, with more linguistic abilities, and evidently with the desire of showing off, while at the sane time given to prevarication, answered. in Turki, "No, no!" We sought explanations, We were told that long ago the hyenas lived in the towns and villages, while the dogs put up with the cold comfort of the hills, Rut every dog, like every dogma, has its day, and under the plea that one of their number was ill, they porauaded the hyenas to allow them to use the village for a time. The humanitarian hyenas replied the f peul of pleasure." "But once the dogs were as hard to more asa Govern. ment employe, and they have stuck in the towns and villages from then till now, Yet every night the hyenas come down and hintingly: "Is he better yet?" and the hounds answer persistently: No, no!" It is possible this story is not true.
The day we left Sevend we had another antiquarian treat. We rambled among the ruins of Persepolis, where Xerxes ruled and Alexander feasted. The first intimation we were near the spot was stepping through a gorge where stood the remains of a mighty gateway, which were s like the Gate to the Balkans one raw at the Lyceum Theatre when Coppéo's Pour la Couronne was produced as one pea is like a second pea—just showing the long arm of coincidence. We dropped into a camp of nomads, and who plump, pretty; pellucid-ryed n girl to give us long draughts of goat's milk, and to smile while her photograph was taken. Tien we twisted our Rovers round a cliff.
Just ahead rose what looked like a lot of battered ninepins on the top of n shaky table. This was Persopolis. A limping-hoofed, cringing old sinner wanted to act as guide. He began talking about Jem-shoed, who is as mythical a Persian as Arthur of the Round Table is English. Jemsheed was a sort of Samson and Glad-tone rolled into one, and when he could er an opp-nent with an-epigram, he quieted. him with a boulder. We told the guide we knew better than he did, and Proceeted to roam.
Not that we did know, asamatter of fact. Furtively we had been reading up Persepolis. And as every man who has written about Persepolis has a different theory, three very different and rather confused theories were set adrift that "(Of course," said one, this is the ancient royal city of Istakhr; hero is a fire-altar; yonder are the royal sepulchres interesting remnants of the Achemenian "What rubbish ungraciously observed a second; "nothing is plainer than that these are Sassanian remains; look at those inscriptions, those has-reliefs, and any fool knows that Sassanian sculpture seven centuries later than Achwmenian.
The third remarked something about a Greco-Parthian period.
So we set to wrangling and dispute ing and demonstrating, just like learned savants, instead of lanky cyclists. Although, like the two people in Catlton's poer—"We argued the thing at breakfast; we argued the thing at tea And the more we argued the qu-stion the move we didn't agree,"
we formed pretty decided opinions as to ons another's historical knowledge.
Any way, we did manage to be in accord on several points. The ruins were wonderful. They were majestic. They were bewildering. There was a tremendous platform built of massive plucks of stone, fixed Jemshed only knows how. Thoro were imposing bulls, one much the worse for wear, standing guard to a hall that itself stands no longer. There were lofty, fluted, top-heavy pillars, road and deep staircases, fine arches, undecipherable inscriptions, and a perfect panorama of bas-reliefs representing all sorts of courageous deeds, folks dressed in uncomfortable cus-tumes, and kings going walks with umbrollas held al-ft to protect the royal visnges from the unrespecting sun, One of pointed out picture which he assorted—somebody else's authority—dopicted the Perso-Roman campaign of Shapur I and the cantaro of the venerable Roman Emperor Valerian. Poor o'd Valerian acted us " footstool when Shapur mounted horseback, and when ho died his skin was staffed, and hung in a temple to receive the abuse of the devout, Another depicted the investiture of Ardeshie Bubekan or es, son of Balek, founder of the line, with imperial cydaris by the God Ormuzd. There was. alo Atiabanux, But Artabanus was an objertionab'e man. He kept snakes in hia ved. This is what Professor Dryasdust must refer to when he'speake of the yor: gon-headed demon of Arsacidinn idolatry," or alludes to "the anake-crested helmet of the Med Tt would be easy tw give a atring of por-son ages ax well known to the roader as ourselves. But spolling the names of hoary-timod king: is hard work. Therefore it best to vefiain, What is tolerably corta is that Darius, the son "f Cyrus, who inculated and subsequently hatched the Persian kingdom, built these erunsbling halls; flirt Xerxes hero udministoved the Jaws of the Medes and the Persinas; that Alexander the Great, when he cunquored the city, and celobrared it by a gorgeous, gourmandising banquet, got so Grunk that mad pervorssness he made the entire ince into a bonfire to amuse him for an hour; that on the great platform where we munched sandwiches, and nibbled cake Darius preserved the Avesta, written in gold and silver lotters upon twelve thou. sand tanned ox-hides, and that beneath wore six monarchs buried. Thoro is the Hall of a Hundred Columns; there are chiselled panegyrics declaring the glory of Xerxes; on the face of the rocks gapo the mouths of royal tombs, now the harbours. of bats and vermin—all is lordly and forlorn, andnomisty, sorrowful-countenanced, ghostly monarch' disturbed our barbarian act as we scribbled our names on marble slabs.
Turning from the palaces of two thousand five handred years ago we bowled over the great plain of Mervdasht with the setting sun dazzling our eyes, hobbled across 8 jolting, cobbled raised path that cuts in two a marsh where storks and wild duck were making an unnecessary babel, and then crawled gingerly round some hills looking for a village. That village was a long way off. We saw lights. When we reached them, they-were caravan camp. fires, and we learnt that we had passed the village quite eight miles off, which was not:
However, there was a guard-house a mile or two on." Wo wont to the guard-house and found four desperadoes, with cut-throat features, managing to breathe in a hovel
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.