46 
THE GUEBRES. 
in a kind of bondage on their native soil: worshipping the bright 
luminary of heaven, with eyes ever bent to the ground, and pour- 
in" tears for lustral water on its dishonoured shrines. Whilst the 
O 
richer multitudes fled to the mountainous frontiers, or to the 
shores of India, this devoted remnant found a sort of hopeless 
security in their poverty and utter wretchedness ; and wandering 
away to Yezd and Kerman, as places least in the notice of their 
conqueror, sought and obtained something of a refuge. Yezd still 
contains about four or five thousand of their descendants; and from 
the comparative respectability of so considerable a body, they more 
openly exercise the offices of their religion there, (and, from the 
same reason, in Kerman,) than is ever attempted by the poorer 
Guebres in the villages about. These people are excellent hus¬ 
bandmen, gardeners, and mechanics; and some few follow the 
occupation of merchandise, though on a very limited scale. The 
liberal spirit of Shah Abbas tolerated their existence at Ispahan; 
where, afterwards, the Afghan Mahmoud gave them a mart, and 
enlarged their suburb, still called Guebrabad: but, like that of 
the Armenian colony from Julpha, it is fallen to decay; nothing 
now inhabiting its ruined streets, but houseless dogs and the re¬ 
fuse of the people. Fars, the ancient Persis, and the very col¬ 
lege of the Mithratic faith, where the sacred books of Zoroaster 
were laid up in the bosom of the rock on which its capital stood, 
and the Magi had towns and castles allotted to their residence ; 
this province has not now a single asylum for that repudiated 
race. Eben Haukel mentions, that, so late as the tenth century, 
a remnant worshipped in the Guebre temples at Kazeroon ; and 
we find that the same privilege continued to others of the faith, 
near the naptha-pits of Badkm; a place superstitiously rever¬ 
enced by all of the religion, as one of the most sacred fountains 
