According to Tegg, whose work is quoted frequently, in the London Times
of January 28, 1876, Mr. Monier Williams writes from Calcutta regarding
the "Towers of Silence," so called, of the Parsees, who, it is well
known, are the descendants of the ancient Persians expelled from Persia
by the Mohammedan conquerors, and settled at Surat about 1,100 years
since. This gentleman's narrative is freely made use of to show how the
custom of the exposure of the dead to birds of prey has continued up to
the present time.

The Dakhmas, or Parsee towers of silence, are erected in a
garden on the highest point of Malabar Hill, a beautiful,
rising ground on one side of Black Bay, noted for the
bungalows and compounds of the European and wealthier
inhabitants of Bombay scattered in every direction over its
surface.

The garden is approached by a well-constructed, private
road, all access to which, except to Parsees, is barred by
strong iron gates.

The garden is described as being very beautiful, and he says:

No English nobleman's garden could be better kept, and no
pen could do justice to the glories of its flowering shrubs,
cypresses, and palms. It seemed the very ideal, not only of
a place of sacred silence, but of peaceful rest.

The towers are five in number, built of hardest black granite, about 40
feet in diameter and 25 in height, and constructed so solidly as almost