104 MORTUARY CUSTOMS OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
The same author states, and Bruhier corroborates the assertion, that 
the Parthians, Medes, Iberians, Caspians, and a few others, had such a 
horror and aversion of the corruption and decomposition of the dead, 
and of their being eaten by worms, that they threw out the bodies into 
the open fields to be devoured by wild beasts, a part of their belief being 
that persons so devoured would not be entirely extinct, but enjoy at 
least a partial sort of life in their living sepulchers. It is quite prob- 
able that for these and other reasons the Bactrians and Hircanians 
trained dogs for this special purpose, called Canes sepulchrales, which 
received the greatest care and attention, for it was deemed proper that 
the souls of the deceased should have strong and lusty frames to dwell in. 
The Buddhists of Bhotan are said to expose the bodies of their dead 
on top of high rocks. 
According to Tegg, whose work is quoted frequently, in the London 
Times of January 28, 1876, Mr. Monier Williams writes from Calcutta re- 
garding the “Towers of Silence,” so called, of the Parsees, who, itis well 
known, are the descendants of the ancient Persians expelled from Persia 
by the Mohammedan conquerors, and settled at Surat about 1,100 years 
since. This gentleman’s narrative is freely made use of to show how 
the custom of the exposure of the dead to birds of prey has continued 
up to the present time. 
The Dakhmas, or Parsee towers of silence, are erected in a garden on the highest 
point of Malabar Hill, a beautiful, rising ground on one side of Black Bay, noted for 
the bungalows and compounds of the European and wealthier inhabitants of Bombay 
scattered in every direction over its surface. 
The garden is approached by a well-constructed, private road, all access to which, 
except to Parsees, is barred by strong iron gates. 
The garden is described as being very beautiful, and he says: 
No English nobleman’s garden could be better kept, and no pen could do justice to 
the glories of its flowering shrubs, cypresses, and palms. It seemed the very ideal, not 
only of a place of sacred silence, but of peaceful rest. 
The towers are five in number, built of hardest black granite, about 
40 feet in diameter and 25 in height, and constructed so solidly as almost 
to resist absolutely the ravages of time. The oldest and smallest of the 
towers was constructed about 200 years since, when the Parsees first 
settled in Bombay, and is used only for a certain family. The next old- 
est was erected in 1756, and the three others during the next century. 
A sixth tower of square shape stands alone, and is only used for criminals. 
The writer proceeds as follows: 
Though wholly destitute of ornament and even of the simplest moldings, the para- 
pet of each tower possesses an extraordinary coping, which instantly attracts and 
fascinates the gaze. It is a coping formed, not of dead stone, but of living vultures. 
These birds, on the oceasion of my visit, had settled themselves side by side in per- 
fect order and in a complete circle around the parapets of the towers, with their heads 
pointing inwards, and so lazily did they sit there, and so motionless was their whole 
mien, that, except for their color, they might have been carved out of the stone- 
work, 
