A PERSIAN.
Now we can see the long outline of Malabar Hill quite clearly, and below all its trees and gardens and the great houses rising among them, but at one part, the highest, the hill is kept for other uses. Look up into the clear blue sky overhead, do you see a black speck? Not got it yet? Wait a moment and try again. There! That is right, and there is another and another; you can't help seeing them now. Their flight is the slow heavy flight of clumsy birds. What do you suppose they are? Vultures. They live, as you know, on carrion, which is dead flesh, and the vultures of Bombay are peculiarly favoured, for they banquet on human bodies.
In this district there are a large number of Parsees or fire-worshippers, and these people have their peculiar ceremonies. Under the British Crown every man is free to carry out his own religion in his own way; persecution is unknown. The Parsees have their cemetery on the top of that high hill; it is a beautiful place, laid out in gardens, and reached by flights of steps. Only at one end are five grim towers shut in by a wall and called the Towers of Silence. Their parapets are high, and none may climb to the top except certain men set apart and dedicated for this terrible work. When a Parsee dies, his body is borne reverently and with care to the gardens on the hill, but instead of burying it in the earth, these men take it up the winding stairs of one of the towers and lay it on the roof, and then retire. The vultures do the rest! No human being has ever seen that dread spectacle, for when the men come back again about a fortnight later there are only the clean bleached bones of the skeleton to take away and lay in quicklime to be absorbed.
So the vultures hover over Bombay and sit like great images around the parapets on the Towers of Silence, knowing that they will never lack a meal!
We have seen many and bewildering things in this great city, and when at last we arrive at the station between five and six in the evening, for our first journey across this vast land, we are glad to rest. We engaged our places directly we arrived, for here, where a journey takes often nights and days, it is no use wandering in casually a few minutes before the train starts. We also engaged the whole of a compartment to ourselves, as we want a good night's sleep. It has been cleaned and prepared, and looks very comfortable when we come to claim it. There are two seats running lengthwise, the opposite way to that which they do in an English train. Above them are two more which can be let down as bunks if required, so that the carriage can accommodate four, but as we have paid extra to get it to ourselves we ought not to be disturbed.
By the way, you haven't seen any Indian money yet. This is a rupee, a large and substantial coin you see, about as big as a two-shilling piece, but it is only worth one and fourpence; fifteen of them go to the pound. An anna is a penny, and that little coin like a threepenny bit is a two-anna bit.
SIT LIKE IMAGES ROUND THE PARAPET.
We have had to hire a native boy to travel with us and look after the luggage, as it is difficult to do without one in India. All servants are called "boys" here, even if they are grey-headed; our man is probably about five-and-twenty. He is called Ramaswamy, and has a chocolate-coloured moon-face with big round eyes; I think he is intelligent though he looks stupid. He is dressed in spotless white, his garments consisting of a short jacket and a dhoti, and he wears a large round turban on his head, and a pair of neat little gold ear-rings in his ears. It is a very difficult thing to get a really trustworthy boy, but the Madrassees are the best, and Ramaswamy comes from the Madras country far south; he has been in service with a man I know for two years, and as he is only lent to us for this trip he will probably behave himself. He is piling up our bedding in a corner of the carriage, and later on when the train stops at a station for a few minutes he will come to spread it out. It seems funny to have to carry bedding with us on a journey, but it is very necessary here. We have pillows and rugs and a couple of rezai each. These are rather like eider-down quilts, but are stuffed with cotton instead of down, so they are heavier, and very comfortable they are to lie upon when doubled up.