wall, are the
so-called Towers of Silence, upon which these hideous birds can
always be seen, waiting for their feast. They roost upon palm
trees in the neighborhood, and, often in their flight, drop pieces
of human flesh from their beaks or their talons, which lie rotting
in the fields below. An English lady driving past the Towers of
Silence was naturally horrified when the finger of a dead man
was dropped into her carriage by one of those awful birds; and
an army officer told me, that he once picked up by the roadside
the forearm and hand of a woman which had been torn from a body
only a few hours dead and had evidently fallen during a fight
between the birds. The reservoir which stores the water supply
of Bombay is situated upon the same hill, not more than half a
mile distant, and for obvious reasons had been covered with a
roof. Some years ago the municipal authorities, having had their
attention called to possible pollution of the water, notified
the Parsees that the Towers of Silence would have to be removed
to a distance from the city, but the rich members of that faith
preferred to pay the expense of roofing over the reservoir to
abandoning what to them is not only sacred but precious ground.
The human mind can adjust itself to almost any conditions and
associations, and a cultured Parsee will endeavor to convince
you by clever arguments that their method is not only humane and
natural, but the best sanitary method ever devised of disposing
of the dead.

Funeral ceremonies are held at the residence of the dead; prayers
are offered and eulogies are pronounced. Then a procession is
formed and the hearse is preceded by priests and followed by
the male members of the family and by friends. The body is not
placed in a coffin, but is covered with rich shawls and vestments.
When the gateway of the outer temple is reached, priests who
are permanently attached to the Towers of Silence and reside
within the inclosure, meet the procession and take charge of
the body, which is first carried to a temple, where prayers are
offered, and a sacred fire, kept continually burning there, is
replenished. While the friends and mourners are engaged in worship,
Nasr Salars, as the attendants are called, take the bier to the
ante-room of one of the towers. There are five, of circular shape,
with walls forty feet high, perfectly plain, and whitewashed.
The largest is 276 feet in circumference and cost $150,000. The
entrance is abo