Around these temples are numerous shrines, each containing a seated figure very much resembling Buddha. The Jains are a sect of the Hindus, and their temples are renowned for their beauty. This temple is visited by a large number of pilgrims every year, some of whom were chanting their prayers while we were there.
Another night's ride and we were in Bombay, and what a luxury to find a hotel constructed upon the American plan. The Taj Mahal is the finest hotel in the Orient and would be a credit to any city in our country. It was built by Mr. Tata, a rich Parsee, who planned it more from public than from private considerations.
We found the plague increasing in virulence, three hundred having died in the city the day before we arrived. Bombay has suffered terribly from this scourge, twenty-four per cent having perished from it in the last few days. Two years ago the American consul, Hon. William T. Fee, lost his daughter and came near losing his wife by this dread disease, and two of the European consuls have recently had to leave their homes because of deaths among their native servants. With so many dying in a single city (and ten thousand a week in the entire country), India would seem an unsafe place to visit, and yet one would not know except for the newspapers that an epidemic was raging, so little does it affect business or social life. There is now in use a system of inoculation which promises to materially lessen the mortality from this disease. A serum is prepared in which the venom of serpents is the chief ingredient, and this hypodermically administered has been found almost a sure preventive. While the physicians are employing this remedy, the rat-catchers are also busy, and about a thousand rodents are captured per day, it having been demonstrated that the rat not only spreads the disease, but carries a flea that imparts it by its bite.
Bombay is the Manchester of India, and the smokestacks of its many cotton factories give to the city a very business like appearance. These mills are largely owned by Indians and operated by Indian capital.
On an island near Bombay is one of the most frequented of the rock-hewn temples, called the Elephanta Caves. This temple is chiseled out of the solid rock, great pillars being left to support the roof. It is about one hundred and thirty feet square by seventeen in height and contains a number of figures of heroic size. These figures are carved from the walls and represent various gods and demons. The Portuguese Christians, several centuries ago, showed their contempt for these gods of stone by firing their cannon into the temple. While some of the pillars were battered down and some of the carvings mutilated, enough now remains to show the impressiveness of this ancient place of worship.
AN AMERICAN MAID IN PARSEE COSTUME.
No one can visit Bombay without becoming interested in a religious sect, the members of which are known as Parsees. They are few in number, probably not exceeding a hundred thousand in the world, more than half of whom live in or near Bombay. Theirs is the religion of Zoroaster, and they contest with the Hebrews the honor of being the first believers in one God. Their sacred books, the Zend-Avesta, are very ancient, and the origin of their religion is placed anywhere from seven hundred B. C. to three thousand B. C. They not only believe in one God, but they believe in immortality and claim to have impressed their ideas upon the Israelites when the latter were in bondage in Babylon. The Parsees see in the world, as well as in the human being, a continuing conflict between right and wrong, and they regulate their conduct by a high ethical system. When the Moslems swept over Persia and made it one of the stars in Islam's crown, a band of Parsees preferred migration to conversion, and, like our pilgrim fathers, sought a home in a new country. In Bombay they have preserved their identity for some nine centuries and have made themselves a potent influence in every department of the city's activity. They have their marriage ceremony, their fire temples and their funeral rites. They have sometimes been called fire worshipers and sun worshipers, but they simply regard fire as the purest thing known and therefore accept it as a symbol of the invisible god. Fire is kept burning in their temples, and when a new temple is to be dedicated, fire is collected from the homes of persons engaged in the principal industries and occupations, and this mingled fire is used to kindle another fire and this new fire another until the ninth fire is lighted, and this becomes the altar fire. Each fire is kindled without coming in contact with the former one.