he temptation completely.

Her influence on College students was of the same quiet, unobtrusive
character, and, for that reason, all the more real. When she died, the
students of the College felt themselves bereaved of a true friend. A
spontaneous movement on their part to found a memorial of her in the
College awakened a general response, and the Ratanbai Collection of
French Works placed in the College Library was the result.

Through the efforts of friends outside the College who admired her
character and attainments, a scholarship fund was raised in her memory,
and the College awards every year scholarships to women students on
this foundation.

During a brief career she was enabled to illustrate by a singularly
modest and unassuming life the power and the lasting influence of
unselfish service. The truest mark of her unselfishness was her own
unconsciousness of it; by look and manner she seemed continually
to deprecate all commendation or praise. Unselfish devotion to duty
in the two spheres of life to which she belonged, her home and her
College, was the outstanding feature of the brief but happy career
which closed so suddenly when Ratanbai passed away in 1895, at the
early age of twenty-six; and because of this her memory remains.

The unfinished manuscript now completed and published will be welcomed
by many who knew and esteemed the writer, as well as by all in whom
the perusal of this volume awakens an interest in the ancient race
to which she belonged.

D. Mackichan.

Wilson College, Bombay,

May, 1902.

THE PARSIS

CHAPTER I

THE EXODUS OF THE PARSIS

The Parsis are the descendants of the ancient Persians, whose fame has
survived in the annals of the world. Reduced henceforth to perhaps
the most restricted minority amongst all the nations of the globe,
they are found dispersed all over the Presidency of Bombay, and in some
districts of modern Persia, in Yezd and in Kirman, where they have been
vegetating for centuries. The Bible, [1] the classical historians,
[2] national traditions, [3] and epigraphical documents recently
brought to light by European savants [4] give us some information
concerning their history.

Fars represents in our days the little province of Parsua, which has
given its name to one of the greatest civilisations of antiquity. It
is bounded on the west by Susiana, on the north and on the east
by the Deserts of Khavir and Kirman, with a coast-line alon