A short walk brings us again to the broad road which runs along the crest of the hill. It is lined with handsome bungalows, with green lawns, and small gardens well kept, with oleander, hibiscus and palms of all varieties. About the end of the ridge, along the brow of a precipitous cliff, are the beautiful grounds of the Ladies' Gymkhana. Sir Henry Yule, in that most delightful work Hobson-Jobson, writes as follows about the word Gymkhana, fast becoming naturalized in England : "This word is quite modern, and was unknown twenty-five years ago. It is a fictitious word, invented, we believe, in the Bombay Presidency, and probably based upon " Gend-khana " —ball-house ; the name usually given, in Hindu, to an English racket-court. It is applied to a place of public resort at a station, where the needful facilities for athletics and games of all sorts are provided, including—when that was in fashion—a skating rink, a lawn-tennis ground, and so forth. The ' gymn ' may be simply a corruption of geno ' shaped by gymnastics.' The word is also applied to a meeting for such sports ; and in this sense it has already travelled to Malta." A short distance beyond the Ladies' Gymkhana are the Tulsi Reservoirs and Waterworks, and their situation is exceedingly beautiful. Beneath is a forest of palms, with white houses gleaming among them ; and immediately be yond is an azure bay, with a narrow strip of land running into it covered with massive and lofty buildings. In the far distance rise the high peaks and ridges of the volcanic hills of Mahratta land, and rocks and islets of fantastic nature stud the great inlet of the sea known as Bombay Harbour. On one side lies this calm, fairy scene ; on the other stands out the dull, ugly wall which surrounds the Towers of Silence, where the Parsecs deposit their dead, to be devoured by vultures. On the trees and on the walls scores of these hideous birds can be seen. Suddenly they rise in the air : a bier is being brought up the long flight of steps which leads to the hills on which the Towers are situated. Close by the bier are two bearded men, and behind them follow a train of Parsees, dressed in white robes with their clothes linked. At the door of the Towers the relatives leave the body, and it is taken within by the two priests. Inside the large roofless tower are stages, or stories of stone pavement, slanting down to a well, covered with a grating, and on the upper tier are placed, stark naked, the bodies of men ; on the second those of women, and on the third those of children. The moment the priests leave the body the vultures swoop down and strip it of every particle of flesh. The skeleton is left for a few days to bleach in the sun and wind till it becomes perfectly dry ; then the carriers of the dead, who are a separate class and not allowed to have any social intercourse with other Parsees, come gloved, and with tongs (for a dead body is regarded as an unclean thing) remove the bones and cast them into the well. This mode of disposing of the dead the Parsees have practised from time immemorial. In Grose's Voyage to the East Indies, printed in 1772, we have a sensational picture of " The Parsee repository for the Dead," and the following description :— " Eastward of the middle of Malabar Hill stands a stone building, used by the Parsees for depositing their dead, it being contrary to their religion to bury them. This building is circular, 25 feet in diameter and 12 high, open at the top ; in its centre is a well in part grated over, round which is a stone platform, sloping from the sides to the centre. On this platform the dead bodies are exposed to the birds of prey, such as kites and vultures, which are here in great numbers. These immediately seize on the corpse, commonly beginning with the eyes ; a man is kept on purpose to observe carefully which eye the bird picks out, and on this they form their conjecture of the state of the soul of the defunct, the right being that which denotes happiness.
" The Parsees believe that any one looking into this building, except the person whose immediate business it is, will in conse quence thereof shortly die. I once went up to examine it : a Parsee, in a friendly manner, begged me to desist ; assuring me that I should not long survive the gratification of this idle curiosity."
Leaving the Towers of Silence, we descend a steep hill, and a short drive brings us to Breach Candy. At the end of the Breach, or beach—" from the breach of the sea was our sister drowned"—are the temples of Mahaluxmee, almost as sacred as those of Walkeshwar ; and beyond them is situated the Vallard, or rampart, built to protect the flat land between the ridges from being flooded at high tide. From Mahaluxmee a road runs along the dreary flats, now being covered with mills and lodging houses, to the Governor's house at Parelle, which was originally a Portuguese monastery. Fryer mentions, " Pa rell, where they [the Portuguese] have another Church and Demesnes belonging to the Jesuits." Grose writes : " There are two very pleasant gardens belonging to the Company, cultivated after the European manner ; the one a little way out of the gates open to any of the English gentlemen who like to walk there ; the other much larger and finer, at about five miles distant from the town, at a place called Parell, where the Governor has a very agreeable country house, which was originally a Roman Chapel belonging to the J esuits, but confiscated about the year 1719, for some prac tices against the English interest. It is now converted into a pleasant mansion-house, and what with the additional buildings and improvements of the garden, affords a spacious and commodious habitation." Jonathan Duncan, who was a bachelor, lent Parell to James Mackintosh. " We have," writes Mackintosh to a friend in England, " about five miles of excellent road over a flat from our capital. We inhabit, by the Governor's kindness, his official country house, a noble building with some magnificent apartments, and with two delightful rooms for my library (overlooking a garden and parkish ground) in which I am now writing." Seven years Mackintosh loitered away in the magnificent apartments at Parell, reading for the composition of the great works which he never wrote. He read Tiedemann's Spirit of Speculative Philosophy, and Richardson's Correspondence, " which contains important materials for literary history." He was delighted with Cooper's third volume more than with either of the former. " His mixture of playfulness and tenderness is very bewitch ing ; he is always smiling through his tears." Thus the weeks and years sped away. He was always sighing for the literary society he had left in London and the " King of Clubs," and for him, as for Macaulay, neither the land nor the people possessed any real interest. After Mackintosh there came to Parell a man just the reverse of him. Mount stuart Elphinstone was, like Mackintosh, a man of great powers of reasoning, of accomplished learning, but he had what the latter lacked—sustained energies. When en grossed in the multifarious duties attendant on governing a vast province, Mountstuart Elphinstone found time to read Cicero De Claris Oratoribus. " It is not the most brilliant of his works, but still I read it with great pleasure, and discover to myself evident signs of that proficiency which he has attained to cui Cicero valde placebit." He greatly admires what he has read of Bentham, including half the whole Traites ; and he had " finished Clarendon's History, and am going to begin his Life." The study of Manfred led him to Prometheus : " both have sublime pas sages. I am most struck with those in iEschylus, though, perhaps, the calm grandeur and majesty of Lord Byron's mountains may equal the storms and tempests, the thunders and earthquakes of his rival." Twenty years after Mount stuart Elphinstone left Bombay, Lady Falkland, who had all the brightness of her mother, Mrs. Jordan, the famous actress, came to reside at Parell ; and, being a close ob server of nature, she enjoyed the beauty of its grounds. " Near me," she writes, " was the Asoka, which in spring bears beautiful red blossoms ; many casuarinas, with their light and graceful foliage, being intermixed and contrasted with the broad leaves of various kinds of palms." A poetic Hindu legend states that the contact of the stem of the asoka with the foot of a beautiful woman makes it blossom.