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The inhabitants are all black, and the Jews also. The latter are good and benevolent. They know the law of Moses and the prophets, and to a small extent the Talmud and Halacha. Thence it is twenty-three days by sea to Ibrig , and the inhabitants are fire-worshippers, and are called Duchbin.
Since the remainder, consisting of Mahometans, Buddhists, Fire-worshippers, and Idolaters, all practise polygamy more or less, it follows that on this globe of ours, the monogamists constitute one-fourth only of the whole population. Such is the naked, unadorned truth! Are we wrong? Are they right? It is not my business to decide this point.
The robins are not good solo singers, but their chorus, as, like primitive fire-worshippers, they hail the return of light and warmth to the world, is unrivalled. There are a hundred singing like one. They are noisy enough then, and sing, as poets should, with no afterthought.
"You will have observed, gentlemen, that I am somewhat damaged. However, it was worth it! That the organization of the Fire-Worshippers is destroyed I am not prepared to assert. But I made a discovery to-day which untied my hands.
Nothing puzzles me more than time and space, and yet nothing puzzles me less, for I never think about them. The Persian ambassador is the principal thing talked of now. I sent some people to see him worship the sun on Primrose Hill at half-past six in the morning, 28th November; but he did not come, which makes me think the old fire-worshippers are a sect almost extinct in Persia.
There was something terribly depressing at first in this uninterrupted gloom, and for some time after the sun ceased to show his disc above the horizon the men of the Dolphin used to come on deck at noon, and look out for the faint streak of light that indicated the presence of the life-giving luminary with all the earnestness and longing of Eastern fire-worshippers.
Makdisi says that in Fars existed the customs of fire-worshippers but that the fire-worshipping inhabitants of the capital of the province of Shiraz had no distinguishing mark on their clothes; from which it follows that in that age these people were in no way differentiated from the Musalman subjects.
But this magic was apparently the religion of the fire-worshippers: and it appears that he looked upon light and heat as the good principle, while he added the evil, that is to say, opacity, darkness, cold.
Amongst the fire-worshippers, Death is divested of all his majesty and is a mere object of disgust. As soon as the last hour of a sick person seems to approach, everyone leaves the chamber of death, as much to avoid impeding the departure of the soul from the body, as to shun the risk of polluting the living by contact with the dead.
In Persia, where the people are now fire-worshippers, the Mohammedan buildings are mostly ruined, and probably many have disappeared, but enough remains to show that mosques and palaces of great grandeur were built.
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