Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/295

 The Platform at Persepolis. 287 building at the south-east angle (No. 4) appears to have had its floors on the third stage. It is on this side of the esplanade that the best view is obtained of the mouths of the conduits, which form a perfect network under the great platform. Their tracing is carefully indicated on Coste's plans.* Advantage of the living rock was taken in their construction; elsewhere, whenever they stretched along soft earth, freestone was used» with large overlying slabs. Whether built or excavated, some of them must have been watercourses which distributed the precious fluid to the inhabitants of the roy^l city. On the last slopes of the mountain, near the tombs, are deep hollows supposed to be reservoirs that would be fed, perhaps, by a spring now dried up. Others of these channels played the part of drains ; they not only received the used water of all the dwellings, which made up as large a population as that of a good-sized town, but rain-waters which from the roofs of the houses fell on the platform, and were then poured out into the plain. As a rule they are below man's stature ; in places, however, one can walk erect in them.' The bottom is covered with a deep layer of mud. Excavations still await the explorer on the esplanade. It is matter for surprise that no European should have followed the example set by Haji Muctamadaldaulet Ferh«ld Mirza, Governor of Fars, who, in 1877, kept six hundred men at work for months;' but I do not suppose that his workmen cost him much, if anything- at all. Did he light upon the treasure he expected to find here, or at least some rare fragments of sculpture, enamelled tiles which he could turn into gold ? He has not let us into his secret. In any case we may congratulate ourselves that such a whim ever came into his head. To it we owe that recent travellers have found the approaches and the interior of the Hall of a Hundred Columns cleared down to the floor, where Texier and Coste had their progress impeded by earth two or three metres high. In order to examine certain features of the construction, the latter was obliged to cut through rubbish pressed down into a compact, resisting mass by fragments of architecture lying upon it. Now ' F^juiDiN tnd Coste, J%r» Mutenne^ Plates LXVII., XC, pb 128; Sit>LZB, Persepolis, Bemerkungen.
 * Chardin, edit. Langlfes, torn. viii. p. %%^^sqq.
 * Stolze, Av. torn. i. Preface.