sy to ride horses both up and down the staircase, and travellers are
constantly in the habit of ascending and descending it in this way.

The width of the staircase is twenty-two feet--space sufficient to allow
of ten horsemen ascending each flight of steps abreast. Altogether this
ascent, which is on a plan unknown elsewhere, is pronounced to be the
noblest example of a flight of stairs to be found in any part of the
world. It does not project beyond the line of the platform whereto it
leads, but is, as it were, taken out of it. [PLATE XLII.]

[[Illustration: PLATE XLII.]

The next, and in some respects the most remarkable of all the
staircases, conducts from the level of the northern platform to that of
the central or upper terrace. This staircase fronts northward, and opens
on the view as soon as the first staircase (A on the plan) has been
ascended, lying to the right of the spectator at the distance of about
fifty or sixty yards. It consists of four single flights of steps, two
of which are central, facing one another, and leading to a projecting
landing-place (B), about twenty feet in width; while the two others
are on either side of the central flights, distant from them about
twenty-one yards. The entire length of this staircase is 212 feet;
its greatest projection in front of the line of the terrace whereon it
abuts, is thirty-six feet. The steps, which are sixteen feet wide, rise
in the same gentle way as those of the lower or platform staircase. The
height of each is under four inches; and thus there are thirty-one steps
in an ascent of ten feet.

The feature which specially distinguishes this staircase from the lower
one already described is its elaborate ornamentation. The platform
staircase is perfectly plain. The entire face which this staircase
presents to the spectator is covered with sculptures. In the first
place, on the central projection, which is divided perpendicularly into
three compartments, are represented, in the spandrels on either side,
a lion devouring a bull, and in the compartment between the spandrels
eight colossal Persian guardsmen, armed with spears and either with
sword or shield. Further, above the lion and bull, towards the edge of
the spandrel where it slopes, forming a parapet to the steps, [PLATE
XLIII., Fig. 1.] there was a row of cypress trees, while at the end of
the parapet and along the whole of its inner face were a set of small
figures, guardsmen habited like those