ntry estate is fairly certain to be friendly to Ceylon tea
the rest of his life, for modern machinery does much of the work which
in China and Japan is performed by hands none too clean and amid
surroundings none too healthful.

CHAPTER VI

BOMBAY AND ITS PARSEE "JEES" AND "BHOYS"

The Parsee is the only sect holding religious tenets strange enough to
stamp them as "peculiar people" who amount to much in the material
affairs of life. Every country possesses groups of people having
religious beliefs and practices which attract to them a curious
interest; but Bombay's Parsee colony is the only illustration of a
brotherhood following strange lives who shine resplendently in the
financial and social worlds.

Everything in Bombay is dominated by the Parsee element, and every
public hospital and other charitable institution, public statue, or
drinking fountain, is the benefaction of a Parsee. The mansions and
finest villas are Parsee homes, the leaders of club life are Parsees,
and almost every bank and influential commercial house bears a Parsee
name on its door. Bombay's population is not far from nine hundred
thousand, of which the Parsees number only sixty thousand--but this
minority impresses its importance on the majority and gives a character
of unique interest to the city.

These dominating people are Indians only by adoption. Twelve hundred
years ago the Mohammedan conquerors of Persia persecuted the disciples
of Zoroaster to an extent that many of the strongest men and women of
the faith fled to India for safety, and the Parsees of to-day are the
descendants of these refugees. For generations they have made education
a feature, have always helped each other, and been extremely clannish,
although preserving toward people of other religions a respectful
attitude. Their creed, claimed to have descended from the Hebrew prophet
Daniel, is expressed in three precepts of two words each: Good thoughts,
good words, good deeds. Orthodox Parsees wear a white girdle of three
coils as reminder of these principles; but present-day Parsee men have
discarded all evidences of their creed save the designating vizorless
cap, and dress in garments of European pattern, and their women are
garbed in robes of delicately-shaded and clinging silks, and wear
embroidered mantillas on their heads.

Most Parsees are superbly educated, variously accomplished, and speak
English fluently. Their equipages are the smartest in Bombay,