what places they are to be exhibited. The honour of entertaining the sacred symbol is accorded to the highest bidder, and I have heard that Sheikh Nasir is entitled to a tithe of the contributions collected on these occasions. The successful competitor having made all the necessary preparations, the cock is set up at the end of a room, and covered with a white cloth, underneath which is a plate to receive the subscriptions. At a given signal all rise up, each approaches the Senjak, bows before it, and throws his contribution into the plate. On returning to his place, each worships the image several times, and strikes his breast, as if to propitiate the favour of the much dreaded principle.
It will appear from the above, that the worship of Melek Taoos is much more common among the Yezeedees than that of Sheikh Adi. I have frequently inquired the cause of this, and the answer has been, that the latter is so good that he needs not to be invoked, whereas the former is so bad, that he requires to be constantly propitiated. As these two principles seem to form the substance of their religious creed, there can be no doubt as to its origin. "The great and fundamental article of the Persian theology," writes Gibbon, "was the celebrated doctrine of the Two Principles; a bold and injudicious attempt of Eastern philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral and physical evil, with the attributes of a beneficent Creator and governor of the world." Such was pure Zoroastrianism, which in after ages was corrupted by the Persian Magians by a various mixture of foreign idolatry. This was borrowed chiefly from the Sabeans, whose religion had been diffused over Asia, by the science of the Chaldeans, and the arms of the Assyrians. Of this people, the author above quoted says: "The flexible genius of their faith was always ready, either to teach or to learn; in the tradition of the creation, the deluge and the patriarchs, they held a singular agreement with their Jewish captives; they appealed to the secret books of Adam, Seth, and Enoch; and a slight infusion of the Gospel has transformed the last remnant of the Polytheists, into the Christians of S. John, in the territory of Bassora." It is not within the scope of this work to trace with precision, the relation existing between the modern Yezeedees and the Magians of old; enough has been advanced to show
