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"Oh, I forgot, parson; I mean no harm, Adrian. I'm only telling what I've heard." "No harm, my dear boy," returned Adrian. "I'm perfectly aware that Zoroaster is not dead. You have been listening to a common creed. Drink the Fire-worshippers, if you will." "Here's to Zoroaster, then!" cried Richard. "I say, Rippy! we'll drink the Fire-worshippers to-night won't we?"
Istakhri and Ibn Hauqal relate that the bulk of the inhabitants of Fars consisted of fire-worshippers and they were there in larger number than anywhere else, Fars being the centre of sacerdotal and cultural life of the empire in the days of Persian independence.
That they were not altogether unknown in the fifth century before Christ is a matter of certainty, and at the time when the Persian Empire was at the zenith of its glory, the fires in the temples of the fire-worshippers were undoubtedly kept fed by the natural petroleum which the districts around afforded.
But perhaps it may inflame his imagination if I tell him that Baku is the town of the Guebres, the city of the Parsees, the metropolis of the fire-worshippers. Encircled by a triple girdle of black battlemented walls, the town is built near Cape Apcheron, on the extreme spur of the Caucasian range. But am I in Persia or in Russia?
It is probable, or rather certain, that Canton is here meant. Meaning the Parsees or Guebres, the fire-worshippers of Persia.
"Oh, I forgot, parson; I mean no harm, Adrian. I'm only telling what I've heard." "No harm, my dear boy," returned Adrian. "I'm perfectly aware that Zoroaster is not dead. You have been listening to a common creed. Drink the Fire-worshippers, if you will." "Here's to Zoroaster, then!" cried Richard. "I say, Rippy! we'll drink the Fire-worshippers to-night won't we?"
Their religion is a mixture of the doctrines of the Prophet and local idolatry; for they have been somewhat infected by the prevailing worship of the natives. The Parsees are an educated mercantile class, the great body of them being found in Bombay. They are fire-worshippers; and their creed is that of Zoroaster, who flourished not less than 800 years before Christ.
The handsomest temple in Bombay is a small unimportant building, and I must again contradict those descriptions which make so much of the beautiful temples of the Fire-worshippers. As I was informed by Manuckjee, the fire burns in a kind of iron vase, in a completely empty, unornamented temple or apartment.
While speaking of the Fire-worshippers, I will relate all that I myself saw of them, as well as what I learnt from Manuckjee- Cursetjee, one of the most cultivated and distinguished among them. The Fire-worshippers believe in one Supreme Being.
The philosopher explained to him the doctrines of the fire-worshippers, and by his art he reared a tree before the house of Gushtásp, beautiful in its foliage and branches, and whoever ate of the leaves of that tree became learned and accomplished in the mysteries of the future world, and those who ate of the fruit thereof became perfect in wisdom and holiness.
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