Khorsabad

“ So too, in later ages, when the progress of political life led kings to inhabit great separate buildings of their own, the palace gates became for the courtiers what the city gates were for the [71] population at large. At Khorsabad they were constructed on exactly the same plan as those of the town; they are even more richly decorated and the chambers they inclose are no less spacious. ”

“ There must in all probability have been other remains of these columns besides those noticed by the English explorer, but at Khorsabad alone were the excavations superintended by a professional architect, there alone were they watched by the trained eye of a man capable of giving its true meaning and value to every detail of a ruinous building. At Nimroud, at Kouyundjik, at Nebbi-Younas, many interesting traces of ancient arrangements may have been obliterated in the course of the excavations without those who stood by having the least suspicion of their significance. ”

“ M. Botta believed that it was open; and the analogy of the other courts would seem to make this probable. It is to be regretted, however, that this portion of the great Khorsabad ruin still remains so incompletely examined. Consisting of the private apartments, it is naturally less rich in sculptures than other parts; and hence it has been comparatively neglected. The labor would, nevertheless, be well employed which should be devoted to this part of the ruin, as it would give us (what we do not now possess) the complete ground-plan of an Assyrian palace. ”

“ The accuracy with which building operations are portrayed, and a sense of landscape, are great advances even on the superb work of Sargon’s palace at Khorsabad. On the adjoining platform to the south, now Nebi-Yunus, Sennacherib erected an arsenal for military supplies. Nineveh was badly supplied with water for drinking; the inhabitants had to “turn their eyes to heaven for the rain,” but Sennacherib conducted water by eighteen canals from the hills into the Husur and distributed its waters round the moats and into store tanks, or ponds, within the city. ”

“ We have not space here to undertake an investigation of the old Chaldean faith, nor to point out the principles in human nature by a rash reasoning upon which astrology seems to have arisen. We would remark, however, that the convulsion which intervened between the fall of the first Assyrian dynasty and the rise of the second, occasioned, or was at least accompanied by, a change in the State-religion of the country. In the palaces at Khorsabad and Kouyunjik, built by the second dynasty, we find no traces of the religious emblems so frequent in the sculptures of the earliest palaces at Nimroud. ”

“ Such is also the case opposite Mosul. The remains of one or two buildings appear to exist within the inclosure; but in the greater part there are no indications whatever of ancient edifices, and the conglomerate rock is, as at Nimroud, on a level with the surrounding soil.
At Khorsabad, the greater part of the inclosed space is so much below the surrounding country, that it is covered with a marsh formed by the small river Khauser, which flows near the ruins. ”

“ They are invariably long and narrow, the proportions in some being so striking as to have made them more like corridors than apartments—a feature, by the by, which must have greatly impaired their architectural beauty: they were three or four times as long as they were wide, and even more. The great hall of the palace of Asshur-nazir-pal on the platform of the Nimrud mound (excavated by Layard, who calls it, from its position, "the North-West palace") is 160 feet long by not quite 40 wide. Of the five halls in the Khorsabad palace the largest measures 116 ft. ”

“ Khorassan is the north-eastern province of Persia, bounded on the east by Afghanistan, on the south by the Great Salt Desert, on the west by the other dominions of the Shah, and on the north by the recently acquired Russian province of Transcaspia. Its capital is Meshed, the sacred city of the votaries of the Sheite sect of the Mussulman religion, and till within very recent days no Christian was admitted within its sacred walls. Pilgrims flock to it from all quarters of Persia, and the pious dead are carried thither for burial in coffins slung upon the backs of mules. ”

“ The surface of Khorasan thus consists mainly of highlands, saline, swampy deserts and upland valleys, some fertile and well-watered. Of the last, occurring mainly in the north, the chief are the longitudinal valley stretching from near the Herat frontier through Meshed, Kuchan and Shirvan to Bujnurd, the Derrehgez district, which lies on the northern skirt of the outer range projecting into the Akhal Tekkeh domain, now Russian territory, and the districts of Nishapur and Sabzevar which lie south of the Binalud and Jagatai ranges. ”

“ Khorassan, the largest province of Persia; is on the Afghan border, mountainous, and fertile only in the N. among the valleys of the Elburz range; grain, tobacco, and medicinal plants are grown; gold and silver, turquoises, and other gems found. The capital is Meshed (50) , a sacred Moslem city, with carpet, jewellery, and silk manufactures.
Khyber Pass, a narrow defile 33 m. long, in one place only 10 ft. wide, through not lofty but precipitous mountains; lies to the NW. of Peshawur, and is the chief route between the Punjab and Afghanistan ”

“ About two miles from the principal gate of the city we were met by General MacLean on horseback, accompanied by his escort of six Indian Sowars in full uniform, and six Turcoman gholams in their picturesque native dress; and with this escort we rode into the capital of the Khorassan. This city, like Tehran, is surrounded by a mud rampart, with a broad ditch about ten feet deep and thirty feet broad; it is about six miles in circumference, and is commercially of considerable importance, as it is the great centre of trade between India, Persia, and Bokhara. ”

“ What a long Fursukh is that of Khorasan, says a traveller, who has toiled from sun-rise nearly to sun-set, and who can no longer cling to his jaded horse, but by the prong in front of his saddle. An European, who canters and gallops onwards, can form no just conception of the fatigue of a forty-mile stage in Khorasan, where every step must be walked, and there is no inn or refreshment at the end of it. ”

“ THE TOWER OF SILENCE Hundreds of years ago, when the Persian race first issued from unknown Bactria and the grim Hyrcanian forests, passing through the Caspian Gates, they came upon a fertile land lying to the north-east of the country, which was subsequently named Media. There on the edge of the province known to-day as Khorasan they founded a city, which with the rolling centuries gathered greatness and riches and power ”

“ Khuramabad, the importance of which lies in its 122 situation on what is regarded as the best commercial route from Shuster to Tihran, etc., is the capital of the Feili Lurs and the residence of the Governor of Luristan. Picturesque at a distance beyond any Persian town that I have seen, with its citadel rising in the midst of a precipitous pass, its houses grouped round the base, its fine bridge, its wooded gardens, its greenery, and the rich valley to the south of the gorge in which it stands, it successfully rivals any Persian town in its squalor, dirt, evil odours, and ruinous condition. ”

“ Khorasmin or Khuaresm, is a populous, pleasant, and fertile country, containing many good and strong towns, the capital being Khorasme. The country produces abundance of corn, and very little wine. This empire borders on a desert of an hundred days journey in extent. To the west is the Caspian sea, to the north Kumania, and to the east Turkestan. The inhabitants are heathens, without letters or laws. The Soldini are the most intrepid of warriors; have a particular language of their own, for which they employ the Greek characters in writing ”

“ Khorasan played a vital part in the development of the modern Persian literature and especially its chief department, poetry. The entire early period of the history of modern Persian poetry, from Abbas welcoming with an ode Khalif Mamun into Merv down to Firdausi, may be labelled Khorasanian. There flourished the activity of Rudaki, Kisai, Dakiki, and other less notable representatives of the early period of modern Persian bards. [2] The culture of poetry was favoured not only by the geographical position of the province of Khorasan but by its political conditions. ”

“ In 1704, when Moorshed Coole Khan transferred the seat of government to this place, he changed its name of Mukhsooabad to Moorshedabad. It extends for eight miles along both [Pg 431] sides of the most sacred branch of the Ganges, called Bhauguretty, or Cossimbazar, at a distance of about 120 miles above Calcutta. It is an excessively shabby-looking town; the houses are ill built, and have a mean appearance, most of them being only one story high. Some are of brick with tile roofs, others of mud; others again mere straw huts, all jumbled together without the slightest attention to regularity. ”

“ When the governor saw that there was no profit for him with the young Khorassani, he returned to the king, the ravisher of the damsel, and told him what the chamberlain had done and counselled him to slay the latter and incited him to recover the damsel, [promising] to give his friend to drink of poison and return. So the king sent for the chamberlain and upbraided him; whereupon he fell upon him and slew him and the king’s servants fell upon the chamberlain and slew him. ”

“ Here there is a small village, with a ruined fort on a mound, and a large, square, post-station, looking more like a prison than a halting-place for travellers, and at 1.30 we left its dreary walls and continued our journey to Shahrûd, sixteen miles. Our route was north-north-east, by a well-beaten track, over a stony hill skirt; at times it followed the border of the eternal salt waste on our right, and at others skirted the hills on our left. ”

“ If foreign to India proper, its establishment must have been at a remote period, as we find individuals of it intermarrying with the Sûryavansa ancestry of the present princes of Mewâr when this family were the Lords of Ballabhi. The capital of the Châwaras was the insular Deobandar on the coast of Saurâshtra; and the celebrated temple of Somnâth, with many others on this coast, dedicated to Balnâth, or the Sun, is attributed to this tribe of the Sauras, or worshippers of the Sun; most probably the generic name of the tribe as well as of the peninsula. ”

“ KAIN, the name of a sub-province and of a town of Khorasan, Persia. The sub-province extends about 300 m. N. to S., from Khāf to Seīstān, and about 150 m. W. to E., from the hills of Tūn to the Afghan frontier, comprising the whole of south-western Khorasan. It is very hilly, but contains many wide plains and fertile villages at a mean elevation of 4000 ft. It has a population of about 150,000, rears great numbers of camels and produces much grain, saffron, wool, silk and opium. ”

“ When it was eventide, the king caused clear his sitting chamber and summoned the Wazir, who presented himself and making his obeisance to the king, kissed ground before him and related to him
THE TALE OF THE MAN OF KHORASAN, HIS SON AND HIS TUTOR. There was once a man of Khorasan and he had a son, whose moral weal he ardently wished; but the young man sought to be alone and far from the eye of his father, so he might give himself up to pleasuring and pleasance. ”

“ It is said, that there is a still more important pass, called Khor, four coses east from Barakadwar. This is said to be the easiest of all the ascents to the mountains, and leads to the town of Khachi, from whence there are routes in many directions leading to places at a great distance, without any very difficult ascent or descent. The town of Khachi, which was the capital, stands on a hill plentifully supplied with water. The town contained about 300 houses, mostly thatched; that of the chief was built of brick. ”

“ The inhabitants are virtuous, honest, and much attached to Sunnism and orthodoxy. But a great part of this country is depopulated and ruined, on account of the different masters who possessed it, and the tyrannical domination of its Sultans. For many years, instead of having been governed by a particular dynasty, it has been administered by governors who have had no other occupation than to amass wealth and to make it pass into Khorassan. Now, this emigration of the resources of a country to the profit of another is one of the surest causes of its ruin ”

“ In 1729 Ashraf became alarmed, and led an Afghan army into Khorasan, where he was defeated by Nadir at Damghan, and forced to retreat. The Persian general followed close in his rear and again defeated him outside Isfahan in November of the same year. The Afghans fled through the town; and Ashraf, murdering the poor old shah Ḥosain on his way, hurried with the wreck of his army towards Shiraz. On the 16th of November the victorious Nadir entered Isfahan, and was soon followed by the young shah Ṭahmasp II., who burst into tears when he beheld the ruined palace of his ancestors. ”

“ At that time Askabad was a mere Turcoman settlement, and I little thought when I parted from them in the forests of Finland that our next meeting-place would be in the Steppes of Central Asia.
Askabad is a flourishing modern town, built in the ordinary Russian style, with broad boulevards, one-storeyed, whitewashed houses, and possessing a church with the usual green roof. The town lies in a barren plain, which in the spring contains a certain amount of scanty herbage, and it is about six miles distant from the Kopet Dach range of mountains, which here form the Persian boundary. ”