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Vultures are as uncanny-looking as they are painted, and to see them waiting on the trees near the erections where Parsees put out their dead to be devoured, is not a pleasant sight. They also sit and watch near the Hindu burning-grounds, which suggests the uncomfortable idea that pickings are to be had there also.
Some of the Parsees, who are always excepted, and are treated as a distinct race and community, mingle with Europeans to a certain degree, but even in their case the line is sharply drawn. The native district of Bombay is not so dirty nor so densely populated as in most other Indian cities.
Fogg returned on board to resume his former habits; while Passepartout, according to custom, sauntered about among the mixed population of Somanlis, Banyas, Parsees, Jews, Arabs and Europeans who comprise the twenty-five thousand inhabitants of Aden.
Perhaps the most interesting people that we see here are the Parsees, with their "Towers of Silence." According to their belief, earth is too sacred to be contaminated, and fire too divine to be polluted, by the bodies of their dead, which, therefore, they expose in the towers, erected upon an adjacent hill, to be consumed by a crowd of hungry, expectant vultures.
Their wisdom and foresight induced them to employ Hindus and Mahomedans, Europeans, and Parsees alike, in carrying on the administration, and they reposed entire confidence in their officers whatever religion and race they belonged to." To those principles his Highness rightly claims to have himself adhered.
The grand stand and the terraces that surround it were crowded with beautifully dressed women, many of them Parsees, in their lovely costumes, and within the course were more than 50,000 natives, wearing every conceivable color, red and yellow predominating, so that when one looked down upon the inclosure from a distance it resembled a vast flower bed, a field of poppies and roses.
The impression made by the sight of the ballet on the Parsees, who invariably reduce every thing to pounds, shillings, and pence, took a different form; and they express unbounded astonishment, on being told that Taglioni was paid a hundred and fifty guineas a-night, "that such a sum should be paid to a woman to stand a long time like a goose on one leg, then to throw one leg straight out, twirl round three or four times with the leg thus extended, curtsy so low as nearly to seat herself on the stage, and spring from one side of the stage to another, all which jumping about did not occupy an hour!"
When we were walking alone through its dark shade, we were startled by a shocking smell like that of a dissecting- room; and on looking up saw dead bodies in mats suspended from the branches of the trees, a mode of burial somewhat similar to that which we subsequently saw practised by the Parsees in their "towers of silence" at Poonah, near Bombay.
This idea, that two ancient prophets should rise again in order to serve as precursors to the Messiah, is discovered in so striking a form in the doctrine of the Parsees that we feel much inclined to believe that it comes from that source. However this may be, it formed at the time of Jesus an integral portion of the Jewish theories about the Messiah.
The upper rooms of the superior houses, many of which seemed to be large and handsome, were well lighted and filled with company, many of the most respectable amongst the Hindus, Mohammedans, and Parsees, repairing to Mahim, to recreate themselves during the festival.
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