heads. At least a hundred birds collected round one of the
towers began to show symptoms of excitement, while others
swooped down from neighboring trees. The cause of this
sudden abandonment of their previous apathy soon revealed
itself. A funeral was seen to be approaching. However
distant the house of a deceased person, and whether he be
rich or poor, high or low in rank, his body is always
carried to the towers by the official corpse-bearers, called
_Nasasalár,_ who form a distinct class, the mourners walking
behind.

Before they remove the body from the house where the
relatives are assembled, funeral prayers are recited, and
the corpse is exposed to the gaze of a dog, regarded by the
Parsees as a sacred animal. This latter ceremony is called
_sagdid_.

Then the body, swathed in a white sheet, is placed in a
curved metal trough, open at both ends, and the
corpse-bearers, dressed in pure white garments, proceed with
it towards the towers. They are followed by the mourners at
a distance of at least 30 feet, in pairs, also dressed in
white, and each couple joined by holding a white
handkerchief between them. The particular funeral I
witnessed was that of a child. When the two corpse-bearers
reached the path leading by a steep incline to the door of
the tower, the mourners, about eight in number, turned back
and entered one of the prayer-houses. "There," said the
secretary, "they repeat certain gáthás, and pray that the
spirit of the deceased may be safely transported, on the