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Updated: May 13, 2025
We have in the latter a population of a million and over, one hundred thousand of whom are Parsees, a class of merchants originally from Persia, who represent a large share of the wealth of the city. They are by far the most enterprising and intelligent of the natives of India, and are in entire sympathy with the English government.
Georgians and Circassians in scarlet tunics and silver cartridge-belts, Turks in fez and frock-coat, Greeks and Albanians in snowy petticoats and black gaiters, Khivans in furs and quaint conical lamb's-wool hats, Tartars from the Steppes, Turkomans from Merv, Parsees from Bombay, African negroes, all may be seen in the Tiflis Bazaar during the busy part of the day.
Passing under the frowning batteries of the old fortifications, we landed at a handsome wharf among a crowd of people of various tints, from the white skin of the European to the ebon one of the sons of Africa, and habited in every variety of Eastern costume Englishmen in white dresses wisely shading their heads under japanned umbrellas; Parsees, Chinese, Caffres, and Chetties from the coast of Coromandel, wearing prodigious ear-rings, and with most peculiar head-dresses; then there were Malays, Malabars, and Moors, Buddhist priests in yellow robes; Moodhars, Mohandirams, and other native chiefs, habited in richly embroidered dresses with jewelled swords and pistols.
His apathy in this respect presents a strong contrast with the minute and elaborate description of the same objects, the mode of their construction, and the uses to which they may be applied, given in the journal of the two Parsees, Nowrojee and Merwanjee.
Sir Jamsetjee assured me that the intelligent Parsees regard the sun and fire as only the symbols that are to remind them of the God they worship.
On the step of the return to their Indian clime, they speak of the hatted sect, which is most, or most commercially, succoured and fattened by our rule there: they wave adieu to the conquering Islanders, as to 'Parsees beneath a cloud.
I saw these grisly birds sitting expectantly in rows on the coping of the towers, and the sight was almost too gruesome. Such is their voracity that the body is a skeleton in an hour or so. The Parsees choose this method of dissolution because since they worship fire they must not ask it to demean itself with the dead; and both earth and water they hold also too sacred to use for burial.
"The still sad music of humanity!" it was that I heard sounding in the prayers of those devout Parsees and in the moan of that mighty sea. Sweet, refreshing it was, though tinged with sadness, as all our more precious musings must be, "since all we know is, nothing can be known." In one of my strolls along the beach I met a Parsee gentleman who spoke excellent English.
Wild Animals. Elephant Traveling. Trapping Tigers. A Royal Palace. The Harem. Native Rule. Wild Monkeys and Peacocks. Long Journey across Country. Bombay. The Rival of Calcutta. The Parsees. Towers of Silence. Feeding the Vultures. A Remarkable Institution. Island of Elephanta. Street Jugglers. Crossing the Sea of Arabia. The Southern Cross. Aden. Passage up the Red Sea. Landing at Suez.
The Tower of Silence, in which the Parsees expose their dead to be devoured by birds of prey, was pointed out to them. No one but the priests are allowed to enter it; and the relatives leave the body at the door, from which they take it into the building. It is placed between two grates, which allow the vultures to tear off the flesh, but not to carry off the limbs.
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