88 SIX MONTHS IN INDIA.
surgical relief. Numerous other exhibitions of its action appear at all the towns and villages of the Northern Konkan and Guzerat in which any Parsees are to be found. This munificent liberality, too, has produced various commendable imitations in the Parsee community, so much so that the Parsees stand pre-eminent, among the natives of Western India, for the extent and good direction of their charities. For this they are the more to be commended, that they are only a fraction of the native society by which we are surrounded. About thirty years ago their numbers were estimated at about 50,000, and their population may now be reckoned at double this amount. How pregnant with social good has been their benevolence! That they have been able to do so much for the cause of charity is the consequence of their success in business, particularly connected with mercantile life This success, it is worthy of notice, began first to appear under the British Government; for by the predecessors of that Government, both Hindoo and Mahometan, they were long kept in a state of great depression. Had they not had great internal energy, however, it would not have yet appeared. Though they are the descendants of a small body of poor Persian refugees, who fled first into the deserts of Iran from the intolerant armies of the Saracens, and (afterwards) came to the shores of Western India about the eighth century of the Christian era, they belong to a most vigorous and energetic stock. . . . . The Parsees, though few in numbers, have undoubtedly a good deal of the vigour of their ancestors; and, free from the social manacles by which many around them are bound, they have done wonders, especially in the development of the commerce of Western India. True, many of them, from causes known to all, are at present wellnigh prostrate; but it is fully to be expected that, profiting by the lessons of experience, which others have to learn as well as themselves, they will soon rise again and resume their place in fair business, and liberal ministration to the wants of their fellow-men. The continuance of their educational efforts, and especially of those devoted to the training of their daughters (in
