Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1890-03-01

you will meet lem, toothless,
parchment-skinned old bag who has
hair as white and stiff as the bristles
of Chester white pig, and who
smiles at you through her toothless
gums, and with long, withered fingers
beckons you in. l remember her we'll,
and still see her in my dreams. Vul-
lures by the hundreds sit upon the trees
over her, and as you 60 in you hear the
snarl1ng Of dogs. You look toward them,
they are fighting over the half-eaten
bodies of men, and, the vultures swoop-'
ing down, flap their wings and attempt
to seize q part of the prey. Beside the
bloody corpses are mass OF half-dr1ed
skulls and the odd legs and arms OF the
day before, and the old woman laughs
through her toothless gums as she points
you to thsm: Some of the Buddhists be-
lieve that their chance of Nirvana, or
heaven, is better in case they give their
bodies to the vultures, and some OF these
bodies have been dedicated in this way.
Others are, MS have said, those OF very
Door peoplS, who can not afford the cost
of cremation. :.
There 10 at Bombay colony OF about
70, 900 Parsees, and the men, women, and
children give their bodies to the yultures-
They are fire worshipers, and they say
that fire is too sacred to be denied with
dead body, and they believe the work OF
the worms is too slow and too vile.
visited the Towers of Silence at Bombay,
on the top of which all dead Parsees are
laid, and where their bodies are lefeJor
the vultures. These towers are great
white buildings of block granite, twenty
five feet high and 1900 feet in diameter.
Each is built around central well, and
the bodies are laid on the top walls.
which incline inward, SO that tho rain
will wash the bones and juices down into
the we'll. Each we'll hos drains running
off into the sea, and each is half hlied
with charcoal. On the top of each OF
these towers there is a sort Of grating net
work, with meshes of different sizes,
whether they are intended to hold men,
women, or children. Surrounding tho
towers is beautiful garden of sixty acres
of trees and flowers, and when visited
! this everything was i'll blossom, and the
surroundings were as beautiful as the
garden of Eden AS l looked at the
| towers IL seemed that each had coping
or frieze of gray about it, and this ff1eze
| represented great birds. AS got nearer
I noticed that the biSds were alive, and
| they craned their necks ut us, evidently
taking us for corpse-bearers. Whlie
was In the garden 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 600 of them, and they live
entirely off the flesh of dead Parsees;
They will strip q 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 purify
ing influence of the charcoal. Inc Ia, Lar
sees always walk to their funerals. Ihev
arc the richest and brightest merchants
of the East, but there is no difference
shown rs to their condition at funerals
The corpses of the rich as we'll as the
| poor lie naked on those towers of silence,