A great many silver trays full of fruit, sweetmeats, and white robes were placed on one side, offerings from the women to the Fire-priests.
At the close of the service the entire congregation folded their hands across their breasts, and, having bowed their heads, retired, leaving the priests to heap precious fuel on the sacred fire, so as to preserve it from going out, for which purpose the temple is regularly visited during each day, and the fire is carefully preserved from year to year by certain priests who take turns to perform this most religious duty.
One evening we went to visit, by appointment, one of the oldest Fire-priests in Bombay, who was also a famous astrologer. The appointment was made by our nearest European neighbor on Malabar Hill, a Mr. S——, an Englishman who had lived a long time in India, and one of our intimate friends. Although Mr. S—— was personally acquainted with him, the old priest had declined to receive strangers until prevailed upon to do so by Mr. S——'s Parsee friend and partner in business.
We started about six o'clock in the evening, and after a long drive through the Parsee settlement of the native town and through a crowded and noisy bazaar, our carriage drew up before a high, dilapidated wooden building. The balcony projected into the street, supported by rickety wooden pillars, under which there was a small garden filled chiefly with herbs and plants. Mr. S——, who had often visited the house and was familiar with its ways, led us through the little garden and up a great flight of wooden steps into a corridor or hall, crossing which we at length stood before a very old door which was slightly ajar, through the opening of which a light streamed upon us in the dark passage. Mr. S—— tapped, and a voice feeble and tremulous bade us enter. We did so, and in another moment we were standing side by side with an old Fire-priest, perhaps the oldest in the world. He did not move or speak, or even turn his eyes upon us.
An old Ethiopian servant present pointed to us to be seated on some cushions near by until his master had finished his evening prayer. We silently took our places on the seats and looked on. In the centre of the room, which was woefully shabby and coarsely built, stood a three-legged stand, and on it was a round earthen lamp filled with cocoanut oil and containing depressions at the sides for wicks, of which there were just seven burning. Before it stood the Fire-priest, his dress, a long dingy-looking robe which might once have been white, flowing down to his emaciated feet, which were bare. But as his lips moved in prayer, and his thin dark fingers passed over and over his sacred thread or girdle, that mystic emblem of his faith, there was an indescribable reflection of some unseen interior light on his wan and pallid features; he hardly looked old, so wonderfully was his countenance lit up with a serene and beautiful expression of peace and happiness.
The floor of the room was made of planks roughly hewn and rudely put together. A number of curious old parchments were piled up on one side; pots, earthen lamps, vases, flowers, shawls, carpets, bedding, and a number of embroidered silk cushions lay in seeming confusion about the floor. The Ethiopian attendant, who looked almost as old as his master, grinned at us from his corner, showing plainly that he had lost nearly all his teeth; but no word was spoken.
His prayers over, the aged Fire-priest put off his long robe and dark conical cap, which were replaced by a short gray angraka, or coat, and close-fitting skull-cap, revealing a few locks of long scanty gray hair. He then turned to Mr. S——, took both his hands kindly in his own, and saluted him by raising them to his forehead three times, and then he did the same to us.
After an interval of about an hour or so spent in pleasant conversation, during which we learned that the Dustoor or Fire-priest Bhèjah was a native of Surat, and had come to the island of Bombay about forty years before with his family, every member of whom he had survived save some distant connections still living in Surat, we begged him to read our horoscopes for us.
The old Dustoor rose at once, as if pleased at our request, and with great alacrity led the way through a long narrow passage and up another old wooden staircase into a small chamber open to the sky by a curious contrivance, a sort of trapdoor, which was let down in rainy weather. There was a bench in one corner of this room; in the middle a circular table which revolved on a pivot, painted with curious hieroglyphics, and beside it a three-legged stool. As soon as we had taken our seats on the bench, the Dustoor drew out from under the table a board chequered black and red and a piece of chalk, and, taking the dim horn lantern that stood in a niche in the wall, set it on the table. This done, he turned to me and questioned me very closely in Hindostanee about the day, year, hour, and almost moment, of my birth. All such questions as I had it in my power to reply to he put down in what seemed to me signs and figures in one of the squares on his peculiar black and red board.