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INDIA

amongst them alone can command the ear of the British
public, and these individuals are seldom really in touch
with their own communities. The Parsi looms especially
large with his portly figure, strange hat, and affable
manners. He is the representative of the ancient
Zoroastrian fire worshippers, who were driven from
Persia by religious persecution in pre-Muhammadan
times. Like other people of Western Asia, they found
their way along the coasts, and have left evidences of
their pilgrimage near the shores of the Arabian Sea.
They maintain the rites of their ancient faith in their
Bombay settlements, or wherever else they spread;
keeping up the sacred household fire, and building their
grim temples of silence, where the body which may not
pollute the earth is exposed to the voracity of the birds
of the air. They live the lives of hard-working, moneymaking
 men of business. The Parsi is essentially a
shopkeeper, rivalling the Jew in his capacity for making
and retaining wealth; but he is often generous and
open-hearted, freely affording his assistance to the weaker
brethren of his own faith, and prominent in those
larger works of charity which enlist the votaries of all
faiths. He is loyal (in spite of those occasional indications
 of a tendency to political agitation to which I
have referred), because it is to his interest to be loyal.
His communal existence depends on the stability of
the English Government in India. Under its protection
he can traffic and flourish, and multiply the race of those
who add to the economic development of the country,
without being called on to furnish any contingent to those
defensive engines, armies and fortifications, which secure
his continued existence.
The chief of his strongholds is Bombay. Here the
Parsis hold all the best of the house property, almost to
the exclusion of Europeans; but they may be found in
scattered units through the length and breadth of India,
and always in the capacity of the shopkeeper, the man
of commerce, often holding high and responsible posts
in the public interests. The strength of intellectual