igotism, was firmly
established from one end of the country to the other. The fine temples,
the shrines of the Zoroastrians, were mercilessly destroyed or changed
into mosques.

Zoroaster, the prophet of the Parsees, had first promulgated his religion
during the reign of Gushtasp (b.c. 1300) of the Kayanian family, but
after centuries of vicissitudes and corruption it was not till the time
of the Sassanian dynasty (a.d. 226) that Ardeshir Babekhan, the brave and
just, restored the Zoroastrian religion to its ancient purity. It is this
religion--the true religion of ancient Persia--that was smothered by the
conquered Arabs by means of blood and steel, and is only to-day retained
in a slightly modified character by the few remaining Guebres of Yezd and
Kerman, as well as by those who, sooner than sacrifice their religious
convictions and their independence, preferred to abandon their native
land, migrating to India with their families, where their successors are
to be found to this day still conservative to their faith.

It is not too much to say that, although--in the conglomeration of races
that form the Indian Empire--the Parsees are few in number, not more than
100,000 all counted, they nevertheless occupy, through their honesty,
intelligence and firmness of character, the foremost place in that
country. But with these Parsees who migrated we have no space to deal
here. We will merely see why the remainder escaped death at the hands of
the Mahommedans, and, while ever remaining true to their religion,
continued in Yezd and Kerman when, under the new rulers, almost the whole
of the Zoroastrian population of Persia was compelled to embrace the
religion of Islam.

The fact that Yezd and Kerman were two distant and difficult places of
access for the invading Moslems, may be taken as the likely cause of the
Zoroastrians collecting there. Also for the same reason, no doubt, the
Arabs, tired of fighting and slaying, and having given way to luxury and
vice, had become too lazy to carry on their wholesale slaughter of the
Zoroastrian population. This leniency, however, has not done away
entirely with constant tyrannical persecution and oppression of the
unbelievers, so that now the number of Zoroastrians of Yezd does not
exceed 7,000, and that of Kerman is under 3,000. A great many
Zoroastrians have, notwithstanding their unwillingness, been since
compelled to turn Mahommedans. Even fifty years ago the Zoroastrians of
Yezd