ir young children. But Darius had chosen the site of his palace at
some distance from the stronghold; where the river bent suddenly round a
spur of the mountain, and watered a wider extent of land. The spur of
the hill ran down, by an easy gradation, into the valley; and beyond it
the hills separated into the wide plain of Merodasht that stretched
southward many farsangs to the southern pass. Upon this promontory the
king had caused to be built a huge platform which was ascended by the
broadest flight of steps in the whole world, so easy of gradation that a
man might easily have ridden up and then down again without danger to
his horse. Upon the platform was raised the palace, a mighty structure
resting on the vast columned porticoes and halls, built entirely of
polished black marble, that contrasted strangely with the green slopes
of the hills above and with the bright colours of the rose-gardens.
Endless buildings rose behind the palace, and stretched far down towards
the river below it. Most prominent of those above was the great temple
of Auramazda, where the ceremonies were performed which gave Darius so
much anxiety. It was a massive, square building, lower than the palace,
consisting of stone walls surrounded by a deep portico of polished
columns. It was not visible from the great staircase, being placed
immediately behind the palace and hidden by it.

[Footnote 8: Istakhar, called since the conquest of Alexander,
Persepolis.]

The walls and the cornices and the capitals of the pillars were richly
sculptured with sacrificial processions, and long trains of soldiers and
captives, with great inscriptions of wedge-shaped letters, and with
animals of all sorts. The work was executed by Egyptian captives; and so
carefully was the hard black marble carved and polished, that a man
could see his face in the even surfaces, and they sent back the light
like dark mirrors.

The valley above Stakhar was grand in its great outlines of crags and
sharp, dark peaks, and the beetling fortress upon its rocky base, far up
the gorge, seemed only a jutting fragment of the great mountain, thrown
off and separated from the main chain by an earthquake, or some vast
accident of nature. But from the palace itself the contrast of the views
was great. On one side, the rugged hills, crag-crowned and bristling
black against the north-western sky; on the other, the great bed of
rose-gardens and orangeries and cultivated enclosures f