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

62 HISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHapP, Il.

or collectors and magistrates enhanced the amount by their own commissions, and consequently the sum required to be paid by these poor people often amounted to as much as two thousand tomans.? According to statistics supplied to the author from authentic sources, it appears that about a thousand grown-up Parsis were required to pay the tax. Of these, two hundred were able to bear the burden without difficulty, four hundred paid it with great inconvenience, while the rest were unable to do so at all, even at the point of the sword.

Upon the annual collection of the tax the scenes presented at the homes of those who were unable to pay it were most terrible to witness. Unheard-of cruelties were practised in the vain attempt to extort money from those who had none for even their own wants. Some, to save themselves from torture, and as the last resource, gave up their religion and embraced the faith of Mahomed, when they were relieved from the payment of the tax. Others, who would not violate their conscience, abandoned their homes to escape the exactions of the tax-gatherer. These determined individuals, even when they escaped, had always to leave their wives and children behind them. Ground down by poverty, it is not strange that they were unable to pay the smallest tax. In this miserable condition the Zoroastrians of Persia looked to

1 Equivalent to £1000 of our money.