Some ten years after I had left Kermanshah, Imādieh—so the place was called—was presented (I dare say much against the grain) to the king. At that time the Imād-u-dowlet had become the actual freeholder of the whole of the Kermanshah valley, and his wealth was immense in money and flocks and herds. But the inevitable evil day arrived. The Shah recalled him to Teheran, and the squeezing process commenced; large sums of money were wrung from him, and the royal treasury correspondingly enriched. It is always so in Persia; a man is allowed to quietly enrich himself, but when he has achieved immense wealth he becomes a mark for oppression in his turn. To use the common expression of the country, “He is ripe; he must be squeezed.” [Illustration: THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS. (NAKSH-I-RŪSTAM.)] Just by Imādieh, at the base of a high cliff, is an excavated arched chamber, at the back of which, carved from the living rock, is an equestrian statue armed with a lance; it is of colossal size, and some fourteen feet high (?). Both figure and horse are much damaged by time and the hand of man, and it is difficult to make much out of the detail. There are two other figures, one at either extremity of the back of the arch. Over the entrance of the arched chamber, which forms a delightfully cool place to have tea in, are carved in the face of the cliff itself two figures of Fame (?) (or winged female figures); to the best of my remembrance they have trumpets. These are more in the Roman style, or may be even modern (pseudo-classic), for the early Kings of Persia employed foreign artificers to decorate their palaces; instance being seen in Ispahan, particularly in the large oil-paintings, which are certainly not by Oriental artists. Of the great antiquity of the figures within the arch there can be no doubt, and they are more than alto-relievo, for they are only affixed to the rock by a small strip, and are much under-cut. They have been frequently scientifically described, and appear to be the work of the Sassanian kings. There are several similar though less pretentious figures: one at Naksh-i-Rūstam,[14] near Persepolis; another, called by the people “Ferhad and Shireen,” near Shiraz; but these latter are simply rough carvings in relief. A stone platform has been built in front of the archway, and below this flows a great volume of spring-water that comes from a natural tunnel beneath the statues. A large hauz or tank is kept constantly full by this, and when we were there it was ornamented by a flock of some sixty tame geese, the only ones I had seen, save those in Teheran, and the recent sight of them had something to do with my hesitation when in search of sport on the occasion which I have noted.