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

CHAP. II. | FLEETING GLORY. 89

happy results have been secured through the indefatigable zeal and disinterested exertions of the late Mr. Manakji Nasarvanji Petit, Mr. Framji Nasarvanji Patel, the late Mr. Mervanji Framji Panday, Mr. Dinsha Manakji Petit, and Mr. Kharshedji Nasarvanji Kama, the first four of whom were successively presidents of the Persian Zoroastrian Amelioration Society, and the fifth has been honorary treasurer from the formation of the association up to this day.

We are inclined to hope that the account we have attempted to give here of the remnant of the ancient Persian race, who have remained true to the religion of their fathers, and have continued on Persian soil, will not be without interest to the general reader. The instability of human grandeur receives no more striking illustration than 1s afforded by the overthrow of the great monarchies which ruled in Asia before the Christian era. Inheritor of the old glories of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, the Persian power spread its dominion from the isles of Greece to the tableland of Thibet,—from the Caspian Sea to the confines of India. The ruins of ancient Persepolis tell of the splendour and the power of the Persian princes. The remains of mighty causeways, cut step by step on the Bakhtyari mountains, which divide the valley of the Tigris from the plains of Isfahan, and form the natural defence on that side of the

modern Moslem empire of Persia, speak of the