History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

XXxil INTRODUCTION.

motive, bound all lovers of their country in allegiance to the English Raj. It was only natural that I should also wish to place my own people in a true light before the Government and people of England. I therefore wrote their history twenty-six years ago in a small volume which was favourably reviewed, and which has been out of print for twenty years. Soon after my return from Europe I described my Travels in Great Britain, written in our own vernacular Gujarati. The work had a phenomenal success—oratifying to me on personal grounds, and also as showing the intelligence of my community. I have now completed in this enlarged, and I hope improved, History the labours that have occupied my leisure. If I have succeeded in making Englishmen and Parsis better acquainted with each other | shall have realised to the fullest extent my purpose. The English Government in India has no more faithful subjects than the Parsis; and it is a proud privilege to feel that one has had something to do with the extension of a mutual knowledge. The Parsis will no doubt be glad to see a history of themselves written by a member of their own race, but they will be still more rejoiced if they can think that it will spread among the English a more general and a more correct knowledge of their position in the Indian community. It would be unjust if I omitted to state that,