There Is One Sect Among
The Hindoos, Called Parsees, Who Neither Burn Nor Inter Their Dead.
They Surround Certain Pieces
Of ground with high walls, remote from
houses or public roads, and there deposit their dead, wrapped in sheets,
which
Thus have no other tombs but the maws of ravenous fowls.[240]
[Footnote 240: These Parsees, called Parcees in the Pilgrims, and
Guebres by other writers, are a remnant of the ancient Persians, who are
fire-worshippers, or followers of Zerdust, the Zoroaster of the
Greeks. - E.]
The Hindoos are, generally speaking, an industrious race; being either
cultivators of the ground, or otherwise diligently employed in various
occupations. Among them there are many curious artificers, who are the
best imitators in the world, as they will make any thing new very
exactly after a pattern. The Mahometans, on the contrary, are generally
idle, being all for to morrow, a common saying among them, and live by
the labours of the Hindoos. Some of these poor deluded idolaters will
eat of nothing which has had life, feeding on grain, herbs, milk,
butter, cheese, and sweet-meats, of which last they have various kinds,
the best and most wholesome of which is green ginger remarkably well
preserved. Some tribes eat fish, and of no other living thing. The
Rajaput tribe eat swine's flesh, which is held in abomination by the
Mahometans. Some will eat of one kind of flesh, and some of another; but
all the Hindoos universally abstain from beef owing to the reverence
they entertain for cows; and therefore give large sums yearly to the
Mogul, besides his other exactions, as a ransom for the lives of these
sacred animals.
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