ment
have to be congratulated on their fairness and consideration towards
these fine people. May-be that soon they will be permitted to enjoy all
the rights of other citizens, which they indeed fully deserve. Many steps
have been made in that direction within the last few years. The Parsees
are a most progressive race if properly protected. They are only too
anxious to lead the way in all reformation, and, with all this, are
remarkable for their courteousness and refined manner.

The most prominent members of the Yezd community, especially the sons of
Meheban Rustam, have been the pioneers of trade between Yezd and India.
Besides the excellent Parsee school, several other institutions have been
established in Yezd and its suburbs by the Bombay Society, supported by a
few charitable Parsees of Bombay and some of the leading members of the
Parsee community in Yezd. The Bombay Society has done much to raise the
Zoroastrians of Persia to their present comparatively advanced state, but
trade and commerce also have to a great extent contributed to their
present eminence.

The Bombay Society nominates and sends an agent to reside in Teheran, the
capital of Persia, to look after the interests of helpless Zoroastrians,
and the Parsees of Yezd have moreover a national assembly called the
Anguman-i-Nasseri.

I was entertained by this interesting body of men, and received from
their president, Ardeshir Meheban Irani, much of the valuable information
here given about the Yezd Parsees. The Association has an elected body of
twenty-eight members, all honorary, the most venerable and intelligent of
the community, and its aims are to advocate the social rights of the
Zoroastrians as a race, to settle disputes arising between the
individuals of the community, to defend helpless Parsees against Moslem
wantonness, and to improve their condition generally.

The Association was established on the 3rd of February, 1902, by the late
Mr. Kaikosroo Firendaz Irani, the then agent of the Bombay Society. In
this work he had the advice and help of the leading men of the community.

There are several naturalised British subjects in Yezd, including the
President of the Association--who speaks and writes English as well as
any Englishman--but it is greatly to be regretted that these men cannot
obtain proper protection from the British Government. Yet these fellows
could be of very great assistance to England in spreading British
influence in Yezd,