BABYLON AND PERSIA

DAREIOS I. : YEARS OF PEACE. . 395borrowed from some of the old Ionian city walls.Wherever this casing has been preserved, it has alsokept its admirable polish so perfect that the mar¬ble, to this day, reflects things like a mirror, wherethe surface has not been in some way injured or de¬faced by the barbarous and inane performances oftourists, who think they achieve immortality byscratching their worthless names on the most hal¬lowed master-works of antiquity.7. - As to the stairs, which always strike the travelleras the most imposing feature of these grandestof ruins, they are considered the most astonishingconstruction of the kind in "the worid. There areseveral of them, and they are disposed rather irregu¬larly, according to convenience. Even the princi¬pal stairway, ascending to the first terrace from thewest, is not placed quite in the middle. It is a dou¬ble flight, with a wide landing half-way up ; thereare over a hundred steps, each not quite four incheshigh, so wide that ten riders can commodiouslymount them on horseback abreast. The wholeis of marble, several steps being hewn out of oneblock. On the southern side there is another stair¬way, a single flight, somewhat steeperthirty steps,cut out of one block ! The stairs that lead fromone terrace to another are constructed on thesame magnificent scale, though somewhat less colos¬sal, and not quite so gently graded as the main stairs.When the visitor has recovered from the bewilderingimpressionhitherto produced by mere size and har¬mony of lines, his attention is claimed and enthralledby the profuse and exquisite ornanaentation which