Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-11-24
THE TOWERS OF SILENCE.

There is at Bombay colony of about TO-
600 Parsees, and they, men, women and chill
dren, give their bodies to the vultures.
They are freworshipers, and they say that
fire is too sacred to be defled with dead
body, and they believe the work of the
worms is too slow and too vile. I visited
the Towers of Silence at Bombay, on the top
OF which all dead Parsees are laid, and
where their bodies are left for the vultures.
These towers are great, white buildings Of
block granite, 25 feet high and 2. 300 feet in
diameter. Each is built around q central
we'll, and the bodies are laid on the top
walls, which incline inward, so that the
rain will wash the bones and juices down
into the well. Each well has drains rum
ming off into the sea, and each is half filed
with charcoal On the top of each of these
towers there is q sort of a grating network,
with meshes of different sizes, whether they
are intended to hold men, women or chill
dren. Surrounding the towers is beauti-
full garden of 60 acres of trees and
flowers, and when I visited this every
thing was in blossom and the surround
ings were as beautiful as the Garden of
Eden. As looked at the towers it seemed
that each had a coping or frieze of gray
about it, and this coping or frieze repre-
sented great birds. As got nearer no.
ticed that the birds were alive, and they
craned their necks at us, evidently taking
us for corpse bearers. While was in the
garden a Parsee funeral came, and these
birds rose in the air and swooped down upon
the tower upon which the naked Parsee
baby was laid. There were 900 of them,
and they live entirely off the flesh of dead
Parsees. They strip skeleton of every shred
of flesh in two hours, and the bones are left
under the sun to dry. a day or two later
they are pushed down into the we'll, where
they decompose under the purifying in
fuences of the charcoal. The Parsees al
ways walk to their funerals They are the
richest and brightest merchants of the East,
but there is no difference shown as TO their
condition at funerals. The corpses of the
rich as well as the poor lie naked on these
towers of silence, the bones of all going to
the same reservoir. and the vultures who
to-day feed on the flesh of Dives make their
morrow's meal off OF Lazarus.
FUNERALS IN INDIA.
/ saw many crematIons among the Hin
docs, and 1 attended not few funerals in
India. The bodies were generally carried on
the shoulders of men, without cofins, and
covered with cloths. In some cases a band
accompanied the procession, and the burn
ings were in general very simple. At Cal
cutta they took place In unrooied sheds on
VIC Donhs Va SAS AAOVSASsg Due VIC AiOs "SIC
built on the ground and little hole was
scooped out below them to make draught.
At Benares the cremations took place in the
open air, and after the body had burned to
ashes the ashes and bones remaining were
dragged down into the river. The under
takers Of India belong to the dome or thief
caste. These preside over the funerals and
sell the wood and light the fires used in Gre
nations. They break the elbows wrists,
knee and ankle joints before crematiag the
body, and at Calcutta the body is placed on