The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1909-11-23
TO bAGDAD N 60
DAYS
Continued from Page -
ly underpaid British ''clarks," make
Bombay their home.
Where Men Are Fed to Birds.

BOMBAY tnelr nome.
Where Men Are Fed to Birds.
The morning of the 21st of Sep
TENDER was dismal, dark and rainy
in Bombay, when we went to the
Towers of Silence The Indian
monsoon brought the rain in tor
rents as we left the Tai Mahal hotel,
and started for historic Malabar Hill,
ancient stronghold of the pirate
horde who terrorized Indian traders
a century ago. Half way up the hill,
and closed to all the world save Par
sees, stand these ominous, awful
We had to have a pass
to gain entrance. Up long flights of
stone steps we went, the way over
hung with sweeping cinnamon and
spreading banyan trees. On the crest
of the hill, at the highest point in
all of reeking, steaming Bombay, and
set in the midst of a tropical garden
of striking beauty, stand the Towers
silent structures wherein
the fire-worshipping Parsees place
their dead to be eaten by vultures.
could see those ghostly birds, hun
dreds in number, perched motionless
hn VII, Of he;
wings outstretched like thieves nailed
to a cross. Even as We stood, silent
before the horror of it all, an early
funeral procession drew up
behind US, and, gruesome as it
sounds, we were first made aware of
its approach by sudden, uneasy stir
among the buzzards AS the solemn
procession of priests, pail bearers and
mourners drew nearer the charnel
house, the sluggish birds swarmed
from their lethal roosting place and
assumed universal activity; some cir
clei above the bier, turning their
heads from side to side and watching
with alert eyes the stiff burden of
the pall-bearers. Others, more dar-
ing, dived and darted repeatedly at
the thing so soon to be their own.
But buZzards utter no cry. True en-
blems of death, sombre and silent,
we heard only the rush of their great
black wings. At the small grated
door in the tower the priests fell
back, a bell tolled, and carriers
whose forefathers followed the same
ghOulish calling-took the body.
it of all clothing, they car
ried it up to the top of the tower,
laid it in its proper row, men outside,
then women, and lastly children. In
an hour only the bones remained.
These, later thrown in a heap, are
soon reduced to dust by the fierce
sun and rain. Parsees worship the
elements, and thus do their bodies
return. Some rich families have pri-
vate towers, and one lonesome struc-
ture, remote from the rest, is re-
served for the bodies of persons who
die unnatural or violent deaths.
Karachee, the most important
shipping port on the Persian gulf,
lies three days north of Bombay, on
the edge of the desert and 40 miles
from the Persian frontier. A rail-
road crosses the desert north 20
Quetta and supplies go out by cara
van to the far countries of the
even to Thibet-Sven He
din's new field of discovery. We
saw one train of "a solemn camels,
with faces like suffragettes. each with
its head tied to the tail of the camel
in front. their backs piled high with
plodding off for Afghan
istan. From Karachee we sailed
across the gulf to Muskat on a small
steamer chartered by the Arabs for
carrying horses down to India-Arab
horses to be broken as polo ponies
by the British army officers. Riots
among the Arab horsemen became
so numerous that to reduce fatalities
the officers of the 'KOla" took all
their guns and knives away, return
ing the weapons when the boat
reached Busreh The crew were all
Goanese, from the Portuguese colony
on the Indian coast, murderous lot.
We lost one man overheard; the
said he fell off while
making fast a line, though the usual
quarrel over monte" may have has
tened his demise.
Where 'Sinbad' Used to Frolic.
On the east coast of Arabia-where
the blistering desert meets the brack-
sh waters of the Persian Gulf
stands Muskat, the capital of Oman.
Rugged, red rocks rise high above
he sea, and at their feet, half hidden
IN a cup-shaped inlet, sits the sizzling
,ity-the citadel of the Sultan and
erstwhile rendezvous of Sinbad the
Sailor The heat is terrific, 125 de-