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

64 HISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. IL.

the high-caste Hindu. A Mahomedan, who, without prejudice to himself, holds intercourse with every other caste, considers the touch of a “‘Guebre” as a pollution, and the latter is consequently debarred from following such occupations as are likely to bring him into contact with his oppressor.

Many other causes stand in the way of a Zoroastrian gaining a profitable or even an easy livelihood in Persia. In trade, credit must often be given to the purchaser, and the extreme difficulty which Zoroastrians find in recovering their claims from “true belevers” is a great bar to the hearty or effective pursuit of commerce. ‘‘ The Mahomedan law against debtors,” says Sir John Malcolm, “is sufiiciently severe, but the law is in no point favourable to what are termed in its

language unbelievers.” We see it mentioned on the “same authority that an emiment Christian merchant, who resided many years in Persia, and who enlightened Europe by his observations on that country, states that nothing but the establishment of the Urf or customary law, which is administered by the secular magistrates, could enable a person not of the Mahomedan faith to carry on any commercial transactions in Persia. The bigotry of the priests, and the one-sided nature of their law, which is nothing more than that of the Koran and its traditions, would deprive him of every hope of justice. When an

application was made to the court of Sherrah by a