evidently intended to eclipse all others upon the platform.  And, especially, can we suppose this, when the very same prince used solid blocks of stone, in the walls of the very inferior edifice which he constructed in this same locality?  Mr. Fergusson, in defence of his hypothesis, alleges the frequent combination of meanness with magnificence in the East, and softens down the meanness in the present case by clothing his mud walls with enamelled tiles, and painting them with all the colors of the rainbow.  But here again the hypothesis is wholly unsupported by fact.  Neither at Persepolis, nor at Pasargadae, nor at any other ancient Persian site, has a single fragment of an enamelled tile or brick been discovered.  In Babylonia and Assyria, where the employment of such an ornamentation was common, the traces of it which remain are abundant.  Must not the entire absence of such traces from all exclusively Persian ruins be held to indicate that this mode of adorning edifices was not adopted in Persia?

If then we resign the notion of this remarkable building having been a walled structure, we must suppose that it was a summer throne-room, open to all the winds of heaven, except so far as it was protected by curtains.  For the use of these by the Persians in pillared edifices, we have important historical authority in the statement already quoted from the Book of Esther.  The Persian palace, to which that passage directly refers, contained a structure almost the exact counterpart of this at Persepolis; and it is probable that at both places the interstices between the outer pillars of, at any rate, the great central colonnade, were filled with “hangings of white and green and blue, fastened with cords of white and purple to silver rings,” which were attached to the “pillars of marble;” and that by these means an undue supply of light and air, as well as an unseemly publicity, were prevented.  A traveller in the country well observes, in allusion to this passage from Esther:  Nothing could be more appropriate than this method at Susa and Persepolis, the spring residences of the Persian monarchs.  It must be considered that these columnar halls were the equivalents of the modern throne-rooms, that here all public business was dispatched, and that here the king might sit and enjoy the beauties of the landscape.  With the rich plains of Susa and Persepolis before him, he could well, after his winter’s residence at Babylon, dispense with massive walls, which would only check the warm fragrant breeze from those verdant prairies adorned with the choicest flowers.  A massive roof, covering the whole expanse of columns, would be too cold and dismal, whereas curtains around the central group would serve to admit both light and warmth.  Nothing can be conceived better adapted to the climate or the season.