128 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
at the earnest request of the Prince of Wales, the 
veil which hid the funeral customs of the Parsees 
from the most intrusive curiosity of the public, was 
lowered. Up to the time of the Prince’s visit, be- 
tween twenty and thirty years ago, it is doubtful if 
any stranger had ever visited the Towers of Silence, 
or ever expected to see them. The gate that 
opened to the towers was sternly inscribed: “None 
but Parsees may enter!” The rule of secrecy once 
broken for the Prince of Wales, has ever since been 
relaxed; and he that now visits Bombay and fails 
to see the Towers of Silence, leaves that city but 
partially seen. And if he visits the towers, the 
processes there employed will be fully described to 
him, with the assistance of a model of a tower, 
probably the same as that used in the demonstra- 
tion to the Prince of Wales. 
The location is the southwesterly corner of Bom- 
bay Island, where a hill rises rather suddenly from 
the low plain to the height of about two hundred 
feet, bearing the name of Malabar Hill. The sum- 
mit of this hill commands the finest view to be had 
in that vicinity of what has often been called one of 
the choicest scenes in the world. This summit is 
reached either by a long succession of terraces and 
flights of steps from the south, or by a costly car- 
riage road at the north, made at the expense of one 
Sir Jamshidje, in memory of his father. But the 
carriage-way extends only a quarter of a mile or so, 
and then the visitor had to proceed up a long, rocky 
ascent until he reaches an iron gate in a high wall 
encircling the hill. Within the gate are beautiful 
gardens, quite as well kept as the garden of any 
English nobleman, filled with flowering shrubs, 
palms and cypresses, suggestive of sacred silence 
and peaceful rest. Chapels, or houses of prayer, 
are provided, wherein the Parsees in attendance at 
a funeral may perform their devotions, enjoying 
meanwhile the beauties of flowers and shrubs and 
magnificent views, and much else, to dispel the 
gloomy thoughts which some parts of the process of 
disposing of their their dead might engender.. 
The towers, six in number, are (with one 
exception) circular and are constructed of huge 
slabs of hardest black granite, so well cemented 
that even the 1 oldest has required no repairs during 
the two hundred years of its existence. This old- 
est tower was built when the Parsees first settled in 
Bombay and is reserved for the use of a certain 
family. The circular walls are from twenty-five to 
forty feet in height, according to the inequalities of 
the ground upon which they are built. They are 
wholly destitute of ornament, and without roofs, 
that the sun may beat upon the floors when passing 
the meridian, and that the vultures may have free 
access to them. The exceptional tower above re- 
ferred to is a square one, used only for the bodies 
of criminals. 
There is but one aperture in the external wall 
of each tower, and that is about five feet square 
and thirteen feet from the ground. It is reached 
from without by a flight of stone steps. Within 
the tower there is a circular platform upon a level 
with the aperture through the wall, slightly de- 
pressed toward the center, where there is a well 
about ten feet in diameter. By'means of raised 
walks, three of them having the well for a centre, 
and the others radiating from the well to the outer 
wall of the tower, the surface of the stone plat- 
form is divided into three series of open stone 
coffins. 
A corpse is brought up the rocky ascent, accom- 
panied by Parsees, clothed in white, linked in pairs 
for some mystical reason. The bier consists of a 
curved metal trough and is carried by four men who 
alone are allowed to enter the tower. They are, in 
fact, official corpse bearers. The mourners do not 
approach within thirty feet of them, and as the 
corpse reaches the flight of steps beside the tower, 
the mourners turn aside into one of the prayer 
houses. Upon being brought within the tower the 
corpse is deposited in one of the stone coffins. If 
it is that of a man, it is placed in the first series or 
outer circle of coffins. If of a woman, it goes to 
the middle or second series. If of a child, it goes 
to the circle immediately surrounding the wall. To 
fulfill the Zoroastrian saying, “Naked came I into 
the world, and naked shall I go forth,” all the 
corpses are left absolutely naked in the tower. Im- 
mediately the vultures swoop down upon the corpses 
and in a few minutes time they have done their 
work and every particle of flesh is stripped from 
the bones, which are then left to bleach in the sun 
and wind until they become quite dry. Two car- 
riers with gloved hands and implements resembling 
tongs, then carry them to the central well, where 
they are left to crumble to dust. 
Through perforations in the wall of this well 
any moisture, caused by rains or otherwise, 
passes, and descending into two drains at the base 
of the building, percolates through charcoal, and 
thus deodorized, runs into the sea. The dust in 
the well accumulates so slowly that it has only risen 
about five feet in the largest tower during the forty 
years it has been in use. 
Those who deposit the bodies in the tower have 
to go through a process of ceremonial purification, 
and a special tower is devoted to the reception of 
their garments, (which can be worn but once in the 
tower), and where the clothes of the corpse also 
moulder away. 
L. Viajero. 
