an occupy a length of
three miles. The modern town contained in 1879, 42 mosques, 53
public baths, 5 madressas, 50 schools, 4 large and small bazaars,
and 9 caravanserais. Its commerce is flourishing, the carpets and
shawls manufactured there being very wonderful.

The physical and moral condition of the Guebres has changed very little
in Persia. Their contact with the Mussalmans has neither relaxed nor
enervated that condition. The women, of whom the majority belong to
poor families, are renowned for their chastity, while the men are so
famous for their morality that they are particularly employed in the
gardens of the Shah. From an ethnographical point of view, this is
what can be said; we follow the resume given by M. Houssay [47]:

"When the Arabs by right of conquest imposed a new religion on the
Persians, the fusion of the Turano-Aryans had been already for the
greater part accomplished in the north and east of the empire. At this
time there was no difference of race, manners, customs or religion
between the ancestors of the Mahomedan Persians and those of the real
Guebres. Separated to-day as surely by their religion as by vast extent
of space, they no longer commingle; but being descended from the same
ancestors, and neither having undergone any modification since that
period, we find them again to-day not unlike each other in the same
region.... The only ethnical element which could have been introduced
among the Persian Mahomedans and not among the Guebres, would be the
Semitic element due to the Arab conquerors. But it was not so. The
soldiers of Islam were indeed sufficiently fanatical and violent to
impose their laws and religion on the people, but not sufficiently
numerous to effect any change in them. It would be practically quite
the truth to say that this invasion has left no traces outside the
families of the Seides. The language alone has felt its effects; all
words connected with religion and government are Arabic. The Guebres
should be all the less regarded as pure descendants of the Aryans, as
they resemble their Mussulman neighbours, and are, on the other hand,
not all of the same type. Those of Yezd have, according to Khanikoff,
Aryan characteristics. It is not because they are Guebres, but because
they dwell in a country adjoining Fars. Those of Teheran resemble the
other inhabitants of Teheran. The Parsis of India, whose ancestors
preferred exile to conversion, are more like the Parsis of Pers