Page:The lives of celebrated travellers (Volume 1).djvu/269

 lofty eminences which protected the approaches to the city, and which, when Persepolis was in all its glory, so long resisted the fierce, impatient attacks of Alexander, the ruins of ancient forts still subsisted when Chardin was there; but, after having travelled so far, principally for the purpose of examining the ruins scattered around, he found the hills too steep and lofty, and refused to ascend them!

Having occupied several days in contemplating the enormous ruins of temples and palaces existing on the plain, our traveller descended into what is called the Subterranean Temple; that is, a labyrinth of canals or passages, hewn out in the solid rock, turning, winding, and crossing each other in a thousand places, and extending to an unknown distance beneath the bases of the mountains. The entrances and the exits of these dismal vaults are unknown; but travellers and other curious persons find their way in through rents made by time or by earthquakes in the rock. Lighted candles, which burned with difficulty in the heavy, humid air, were placed at the distance of every fifty yards, as Chardin and his companions advanced, particularly at those points where numerous passages met, and where, should a wrong path be taken, they might have lost themselves for ever. Here and there they observed heaps of bones or horns of animals; the damp trickled down the sides of the rocks; the bottom of the passages was moist and cold; respiration grew more and more difficult every step; they became giddy; an unaccountable horror seized upon their minds; the attendant first, and then the traveller himself, experienced a kind of panic terror; and fearing that, should they much longer continue to advance, they might never be able to return, they hastened back towards the fissures through which they had entered; and without having discovered any thing but vaults which appeared to have no end,