written Sira. 'With the name of Shirin and the rock of Bahistun the Persians have associated one of those poetic romances so dear to the national genius. Ferhad, the most famous sculptor of his time, who was very likely employed by Chosroes II to execute these bas-reliefs, is said in the legend to have fallen madly in love with Shîrîn, and to have received a promise of her from the king, if he would cut through the rock of Behistun, and divert a stream to the Kermanshah plain. The lover set to work, and had all but completed his gigantic enterprise (of which the remains, however interpreted, are still to be seen), when he was falsely informed by an emissary from the king of his lady's death. In despair he leaped from the rock, and was dashed to pieces. The legend of the unhappy lover is familiar throughout the East, and is used to explain many traces of rock-cutting or excavation as far east as Beluchistan' (_Persia and the Persian Question_, by the Hon. George N. Curzon, M.P. (London, 1892), vol. i, p. 562, note. See also Malcolm, _History of Persia_, vol. i, p. 129). 8. _Kaukab_ in Arabic means 'a star'. Steingass (_Persian Dictionary_) defines _Kaukaba_ as 'a polished steel ball suspended to a long pole, and carried as an ensign before the king; a star of gold, silver, or tinsel, worn as ornament or sign of rank; a concourse of people; a royal train, retinue, cavalcade; splendour'. 9. Yezdegird III (Isdigerd), the last of the Sassanians, was defeated in A.D. 641 at the battle of Nahavend by the Arab Nomân, general of the Khalîf Omar, and driven from his throne. The supremacy of the Khalîfs over Persia lasted till A.D. 1258. The subordinate Samâni dynasty ruled over Khurâsân, Seistân, Balkh, and the countries of Trans-Oxiana in the tenth century. Two of the princes of this line were named Nûh, or Noah. The author probably refers to the better known of the two, Amir Nûh II (Malcolm, _History of Persia_, ed. 1829, vol. i, pp. 158-66). 10. The poor old blind emperor. Shâh Alam, when delivered from the Marâthâs in 1803 by Lord Lake, did all he could to show his gratitude by conferring on his deliverer honours and titles, and among them the 'Mahî Maratîb'. The editor has been unable to discover the source of the author's story of the origin of the Persian order of knighthood. Malcolm, an excellent authority, gives the following very different account: 'Their sovereigns have, for many centuries, preserved as the peculiar arms of the country,[e] the sign or figure of Sol in the constellation of Leo; and this device, a lion couchant and the sun rising at his back, has not only been sculptured upon their palaces[f] and embroidered upon their banners.[g] but has been converted into an Order,[h] which in the form of gold and silver medals, has been given to such as have distinguished themselves against the enemies of their country.[i]