Ch.XXIV, p.545, f.1
"Picture to yourself a Persian city. The streets are narrow, of a width
of four or five or eight feet at the most. The surface unpaved has so many
holes that one must proceed cautiously to avoid breaking one's legs. The
houses, with no windows opening on the street, present on both sides
unbroken walls, generally about fifteen feet high and topped with a terrace
without a railing, sometimes crowned by a bala-Khanih or open pavilion
which is usually an indication of a wealthy house. All that is of adobe or
bricks baked in the sun. The uprights are of bricks baked in the kiln.
This type, of venerable antiquity and in use even before historical times
in the ancient cities of Mesopotamia, has many advantages: it is
inexpensive, it is sanitary, it adapts itself to modest or pretentious
plans; it can be a cottage or a palace entirely covered with mosaics,
brilliant paintings and gold ornaments. But, as is always the case in this
world, so many advantages are offset by the ease with which such dwellings
crumble to pieces. Cannon balls are not needed, the rain is quite
sufficient to demolish them. Thus we can visualize these famous sites
covered, according to tradition, with immense cities of which nothing
remains but ruins of temples and palaces and mounds scattered over the
plains.
"In a few years whole districts vanish without leaving a trace, if the
houses are not kept in repair. As all the cities of Persia are constructed
after the same plan and of the same material, it is easy to visualize
Zanjan with her crenellated walls with high towers, her crooked streets
unpaved and full of ruts. In the midst of these rose a formidable citadel
called `Chateau d''Ali-Mardan Khan.'" (Comte de Gobineau's "Les Religions
et les Philosophies dans l'Asie Centrale," pp. 197-198.)