THE GUEBRE PRIEST. 
229 
CHAPTER XVII. 
THE GUEBRE PRIEST. 
During my stay at Bombay, a story of a Parsee 
was related to me, which I think will not be consi- 
dered by the reader out of place in these pages. It 
was said to have happened about the beginning of the 
last century. Jumsajee Merjee was a priest who had 
got into bad odour with his tribe by his licentious 
conduct and neglect of the duties of his holy office. In 
consequence of having allowed the sacred fire to be- 
come extinguished, he was expelled from the commu- 
nity to which he belonged. Provoked at his degrada- 
tion, he quitted Bombay, securing a passage for himself 
and an only daughter in a ship bound to Calcutta, 
proceeded up the Ganges, and finally took up his 
abode among the ruins of old Delhi. 
These ruins are still splendid in their decay, and 
scattered over a surface of twenty square miles. 
Some of the tombs of Patan chieftains are in a 
high state of preservation; and the one represented 
in the engraving, which overlooks, though at a dis- 
tance, the comparatively modern city of Shahjehana- 
bad, is even now almost entire, and a few years ago 
only showed slight marks of the dilapidations of 
time. It stands upon an eminence, surrounded by 
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