Having occupied several days in contemplating the enormous ruins of temples and palaces existing on the plain, our traveller descended into what is called the Subterranean Temple; that is, a labyrinth of canals or passages, hewn out in the solid rock, turning, winding, and crossing each other in a thousand places, and extending to an unknown distance beneath the bases of the mountains. The entrances and the exits of these dismal vaults are unknown; but travellers and other curious persons find their way in through rents made by time or by earthquakes in the rock. Lighted candles, which burned with difficulty in the heavy, humid air, were placed at the distance of every fifty yards, as Chardin and his companions advanced, particularly at those points where numerous passages met, and where, should a wrong path be taken, they might have lost themselves for ever. Here and there they observed heaps of bones or horns of animals; the damp trickled down the sides of the rocks; the bottom of the passages was moist and cold; respiration grew more and more difficult every step; they became giddy; an unaccountable horror seized upon their minds; the attendant first, and then the traveller himself, experienced a kind of panic terror; and fearing that, should they much longer continue to advance, they might never be able to return, they hastened back towards the fissures through which they had entered; and without having discovered any thing but vaults which appeared to have no end, they emerged into daylight, like Æneas and his companion from the mouth of hell. Departing from the ruins of Persepolis on the 19th of February, he next day arrived at Shiraz, where he amused himself for three days in contemplating the waters of the Roknebad and the bowers of Mosellay. In proceeding from this city to Bander-Abassi, on the Persian Gulf, he had to pass over Mount Jarron by the most difficult and dangerous road in all Persia. At every step the travellers found themselves suspended, as it were, over tremendous precipices, divided from the abyss by a low wall of loose stones, which every moment seemed ready to roll of their own accord into the depths below. The narrow road was blocked up at short intervals by large fragments of rock, between which it was necessary to squeeze themselves with much pains and caution. However, they passed the mountain without accident, and on the 12th of March arrived at Bander-Abassi.