PARSEE CEMETERY. 
217 
It is built up within, leaving a parapet about a 
yard and a half high,, the interior space sloping in a 
gentle convexity to the centre., where there is a well 
five yards broad. Immediately round this well are 
grooves, in which the bodies of the dead are depo- 
sited, and left exposed to the vultures. As soon as 
those voracious birds have stripped the bones, the 
surviving relatives return to the cemetery and cast 
them into the well, whence they are removed at 
certain periods, by means of subterraneous passages, 
and flung into the sea. 
There is a story current that the person who has 
charge of the cemetery watches every body deposit- 
ed within it, to observe which eye the vultures or 
crows first pluck out ; if it be the left, the doom of 
the deceased is evil ; if the right, happy. The public 
burial-places of the Parsees at Bombay are five in 
number ; but the more wealthy generally build one 
for themselves and families. 
This island owes its original importance to the Por- 
tuguese, to whom it was ceded in 1530. They 
retained possession for upwards of a century, when 
Charles the Second of England claimed it as a part 
of his queen’s portion. During the Portuguese go- 
vernment it was a comparative desert ; but almost 
from the moment it fell under British domination it 
became a flourishing settlement. It was finally trans- 
ferred from the crown to the East India Company, 
the 27th of March 1668, upon payment of an annual 
rent of ten pounds in gold on the 30th of September 
of every successive year. In 1691 this island was vi- 
sited by the plague, which, when its ravages ceased. 
