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18 that there was 'not as much as any bookes except a few pamphlets intreating of Holy Confession, and Navarr's Summes which the monkes of St. Augustine use.' In April 1618, he set out for Ispahan, and reached the bridge across the 'Bradamir,' which river lie had no doubt was the ancient Araxes. A league further on he came to the ruins of 'Chelminara,' of which he had heard so much from Gouvea. He did not hesitate to identify them at once with 'those huge wilde buildings of the castle and Palace of Persepolis'; and he appears to have been the first to make this identification. Gouvea, as we have seen, had no doubt that Shiraz was built on the site of Persepolis. Cartwright, to whose journey we have already 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 being the first president in that wofull misery.'

Don Garcia is warm in his praise of 'this rare yea and onely monument of the world (which farre exceedeth all the rest of the world's miracles that we have seen or heard off).' He found only twenty of the pillars left standinig, but there were broken remains of many others close by; and half a league distant in the plain he noted another, and still farther off two short ones. He mentions the numerous bas-reliefs that 'doe seele the front, the sides and the statlier parts of this building.' The human figures are 'deckt with a very comely clothing and clad in the same fashion which the Venetian magnificoes goe in: that is gownes down to the heeles with wide sleeves, with round flat caps, their hair spred to the shoulders and notable long beards.'