Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/156

Rh afford to buy, but it seems unable to imbue its commissioners with the energy so frequently displayed by private individuals. The lamentable failure of Messrs. Flandin and Coste before the rock of Behistun and the tomb of Darius; besides the serenity with which they abandoned even an attempt to reach Susa, afford sufficient evidence of this. M. Coste is scarcely even mentioned in the 'Voyage'; but we see enough of M. Flandin to recognise that he did not possess the qualities that make a successful explorer. His narrative is interrupted and disfigured by puerile details of personal adventure in which he evinces a complete absence of the coolness, the nerve and the tact requisite for his task. He magnifies to absurd proportions the risks to which he is exposed; he is constantly involved in humiliating personal encounters with the people of the country, in which he displays vastly more temper than courage. The reader might be tempted to regard these conflicts with some complacency, if it were not for the excruciating punishment with which the politeness of the Persian authorities thought fit to visit his assailants.

Very little more now remained to be done to illustrate all that is necessary to know of these Persian ruins. The inscriptions had been successfully recovered and