It is not difficult to understand why no information could be obtained, from the _present_ inhabitants, as to the object of those edifices. Their remote _antiquity_ is a sufficient reply. But I flatter myself that the reader, who has accompanied me from the outset of this antiquarian voyage, can now supply the defect, and explain that _they were a series of Round Towers_, or _Phalli, erected by the aboriginal Buddhists_, of whom the _Jaina_ are only the wretched remains; and that those “tiles” which are “stuck in them, resembling steps,” _were for the purpose of ascending by the aid of a hoop_, such as we have shown at Hieropolis. The projecting stones in _our_ Priaps, or the cavities that appear after their removal, are thus also accounted for. CHAPTER XIV. The universal ignorance which prevails throughout the East as to the origin of those antiquities which excite the wonder of every traveller makes it necessary that we should again direct our course towards that hemisphere, to redeem, if possible, its venerable remains from that moral night which successive ages have accumulated around them. Persia[206] was the source which poured its vivifying light into the mental obnubilation of our European ancestors. By a reverse of those casualties from which no condition can be exempt, Persia has, in her turn, been made the theatre of darkness; and though, under the fostering auspices of British institutions, the mist has, to a large amount, been dispelled, yet is the proudest era of her splendour left still unexplored, and that is the epoch which called forth into life those monuments of literature and philosophical eminence, which, resisting the corrosion of time and the assaults of war, still proudly elevate their heads towards those orbs, with whose pompous ceremonial they were essentially connected, and whose generative properties they typically symbolised--I mean the Round Towers. This was the moment of Persia’s halcyon pride: this the period of her earthly coruscation: to this have all the faculties of my ardent mind with vigour been addressed; and while, in the humble consciousness of successful investigation, I announce its issue to have far exceeded my hopes, I shall avail myself of the industry of preceding inquirers to throw light upon the intervals of value which intervene; but, lest I should intrude upon the province of their well-earned honours, I shall, in every such case of borrowed assistance, allow the writers themselves to speak; by which it will additionally appear that, with much good taste, and with historical honesty, they have left a vacuum in their researches, for which the public mind has been long athirst, and which my exclusive resources could alone supply.