The kafilah reached Shiraz on the 4th of March. Here he was hospitably received and entertained by the only European in the city, a young English merchant, whose name he should have been at the pains to learn, for assuredly it was not, as he imagined, _Mr. Hercules_. His stay at Shiraz was rendered agreeable by the politeness of the governor, who, at his first audience, informed him that he would decapitate the first person who should offer him any injury in his territories. The audience being over, one of the governor’s friends undertook to show them the palace. Several of the apartments were coated with beautiful Tabriz marble, and covered with magnificent carpets; and among the ornaments of the palace were numerous European mirrors, and pictures of Persian workmanship, among which was one representing a woman bathing, almost wholly naked. Niebuhr was greatly surprised to find pictures of this kind in the house of a Mohammedan; but, in fact, the _Shiahs_ are far less rigid on this point than the _Soonnees_; and we learn from the Arabian Nights, that even so early as the time of Haroon al Rashid painting was encouraged in Persia and Mesopotamia, since that celebrated prince is said to have adorned his palace with the performances of the principal Persian artists. From Shiraz he proceeded to the ruins of Persepolis, the site and nature of which I have already had occasion to describe in the lives of Chardin and Kæmpfer. His head-quarters during his stay was at the small village of Merdast. From thence, as well as from the other villages, the peasants frequently came to observe him during his examination of the ruins, in which he constantly employed the whole day, from eight o’clock in the morning until five in the afternoon. The majority of these visiters were women and young girls, who were curious to see a European; and the whole of the population were so entirely harmless, that the traveller felt himself as safe in their company as he could have been in any village in Europe. He here received a visit from an Arab sheïkh, a learned, polished, and agreeable man, who had passed thirty years in Persia, during which time he had amassed considerable wealth, and now lived in independence and ease.