Show At the Towers of Silence When Lord Randolph Churchill was in Bombay a little time since he visited among other places of interest in the surrounding sur-rounding neighborhood the Towers of Silence As a result of this visit the following fol-lowing comments are to be found inscribed in-scribed in the visitors book with the noble lords signature at the foot At the request of the secretary of the Parsee punchayet I allow myself to express the opinion that funeral obsequies conducted in accordance with the teachings and precepts of Zoroaster as they have been explained to me though peculiar to a comparatively limited number of the L inhabitants of the earth and undobtedly novel to the stranger from the west are entirely agreeable to the principles of a pure religion and may be and are ingeniously ingen-iously and powerfully supported by physiological phys-iological science and experience The Parasees who are a very active and rich class in Bombay will no doubt feel flattered that their practice of exposing their dead on the towers to be eaten by vultures according to the Zaroastrian behest be-hest should be thus favorably regarded by one so well known in the political world of the little Western island with which their great empire is associated The practice has certainly much to recommend rec-ommend it in a tropical country it is I cheap cleanly and exceedingly expeditious expedi-tious Men women and children are put into separate divisions at the top of the towers but their bones those of the rich and the poor alike mingle in the well below into which they disappear in the course of time Lord Randolph Churchill like many another European visitor may have feft the towers a rather gloomy and repugnant sight but the trouble of a journey to them is more than repaid by the magnificent magnifi-cent view to be had from the terrace in front of them of Bombay and the Indian ocean ZoncZon World |