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Show 'THE BABOO OF BENGAL." (THE GHASTLY TOWERS OF SILENCE ' .WHERE THE DEAD ARE PLACED. jTie Pane In His Home A Study of the Xoroastrian Thnory of Religion A Long fcorrival Towers Which Hove Stood Two Hundred Tear. , They looked so human with their gen-;tle gen-;tle eyes, so like other people, whether they Italked Guzerati or English, whether one isaw them in the market place- or at a :roeot, that it was difficult to believo this 'horror of thern. Yet it was true, for there were the facts and statistics in a little hand book in the reading room of tho hotel, facts and statistics of yesterday and today and not of any remote period of anti-civilization. This as to time; and as to place not three miles from whero we 6at, on the topmost point of Malabar hill, an eminence which also bore tho xesidenco of Lord Eeay, govenor of the Bombay presidency. We a3kcdthe hotel manager, who was a Tarsee, if he had ever visited the spot. He shook his head and shrngged his shoulders just as an Englishman might nave done talking of rthe churchyard or the family vaults. "Parsees go only once," he said, "and ithon they aro carried." But ho advised us to go; all tourists did, he said; and he know tho secretary, ho would get us iticketa. OH THE BILL. I So we arranged to drive the next morning morn-ing very early, to see tho Towers of Si- ilnnRA rA Malnhar hill, whither tIia Tna living bear the Parseo dead, bidding thorn a more utter farewell than is conceived iby any other people of any other creed on tartlu Two native soldiers 6tood ia the flueea's uniform at the gate, and looked at us with surprise. It was late ia. the ceaeoa and early in the day far people who wanted to see the century okt eight jthey protected from the over coriooa. I Louis went up to one of them with in-(trepidity in-(trepidity and showed him our passes. He ishook his head and said something fa his own tongue. Noither of ns understood lit, in f.llA VATV lnticf T Tifr,At1l.arl a nlin.u jwhich I had carefully concocted on the way from a "Handbook of Hindostanee" purchased in Calcutta, and which I intended in-tended to mean "We wish to see the Towers Tow-ers of Silence." But the man only looked at his fellow and grinned. I tried another an-other phrase and yet another, but comprehension com-prehension did not come. Then I reflected reflect-ed that perhaps the language of tho Baboo of Bengal was not necessarily that of the native "Tommy" of Bombay, and later investigation proved this to be the case. Finally one of the men pointed with his gun to a small house near by, and nodded his head violently as Louis made as if she -would knock. Bo she knocked loudly and presently there appeared, in blinking blink-ing undress, a very short, stout old Par-1 Par-1 see, who instantly retreated again. We then sat down beneath a mango tree and waited events. I The old Parsee was not long in reappearing, reap-pearing, tall red cap and gown, and girdle gir-dle and all. In his hand he carried a large key, with which he beckoned to us to follow him. He went up the steps, unlocked the gate and let us in. The road still ascended before us through the outskirts of a tropical garden, and we climbed to another iron gate, which the old Parsee unlocked. There we stood in tho dead calm of early morning, with the yellow light in the eastern sky threatening threat-ening every moment to break into flame, in a strange place. Flowers bloomed around us, those crimson and purple flowers of the tropics that are all sense and no soul. Bordered paths led in dif-ferentdirections, dif-ferentdirections, neatly kept, and clumps of trees did their best to give the spot shadow and sentiment We were not looking at the flowers, but at five strange, round, white structures that rose at a little distance, divided from us bya wall, 'in the midst of heavy massea of trees. Tbo oldest of them had been there 200 years, with never a profanation of its name or office a tower nf nilmr. .n that time. The others had been added as they were needed. Thoy were not vaults nd they were not cemeteries, yet their Ifcusiness was with the dead, BY ORDEK OF ZOEOASTKE. i They first arose 8,000 years ago by (command of Zoroaster, as yon doubtless (know, thus: The elements, said Zorons-Iter, Zorons-Iter, aro sacred as symbols of the deity, therefore should never be contaminated jor defiled. Neither earth nor fire nor fwater should serve a Parsee after death (bad made him acorrupt thing. His body should be placed on a tower, high above jail human habitations, that living men khould not be polluted by it, and no foot enter there but those of it bearers, who nhonld leave it and come away. And Jthe towers of Zoroaster's thought, 8,000 groars ago, were the towers with the latest sanitary improvements, that stood (before us in the year of grace 1889, which jgives one an idea of the teal meaning of jeonservatism.i b We saw a model of the structures (shown in the garden, and understood it (With the help of the hotel hand boot. They are built of solid black granite, and covered with whito cheenam. Inside is ;a circular platform, divided into threo ishallow receptacles with footpaths bo-itween, bo-itween, the outer row for males, the next !for f omales and the inner for children. IThree is the notable number of tho followers fol-lowers of Zoroaster, reminding them al-Iways al-Iways of the cardinal precepts of their re-iligion re-iligion "good thoughts," "good words," "good deeds." Every Parsee wears a white woolen girdle of triple coil for-ite daily suggestion and ho carries out the idea to the last. Tho corpse bearers are ja separate class, prepared by certain re-lligious re-lligious ceremonies, and forced to live apart from the rest of the Parsee com-Imunity com-Imunity because of the impurity which Itheir office is supposed to contract for Ithem. ' In compensation the work is higlily ipaid. They carry the body, swathed in ja sheet, to its receptacle, and lay it there without any clothing whatever. "Naked Wo come into tho world," said Zoroaster, 'Vand naked we ought to leave it." Then the corpse bearers go away, and the vultures vul-tures come, and in ten minutes there is a clean picked skeleton whore they left what had been a man or woman tho day before. Ia a fortnight or so the same bearers return, and gather up the bones with iron tongs, and throw them into a well in the middle of the Tower of Silence, Si-lence, which is their fund resting plaoe. Conduits lead from this place to undor-ground undor-ground wells, provided with double filters fil-ters of sand and charcoal and sandstone, for the purification of the rainwater falling fall-ing .upon the bones, before it re-entcra the earth.. That is tho entire system; its simplicity is ghastly. Sara J. Duncan i JJntreal BW. |