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

124 HISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. III.

completely to European manners and customs. The educated and influential classes have already adopted in their domestic life the comforts, conveniences, elegancies, and, we may also add, the costliness, of the European style.

The domestic arrangements of their residences have also undergone of late a vast change. Their houses are generally built in good taste, upon well-conceived plans, and they are well ventilated. Their villas or garden-houses are some of the best in Bombay. The drawing-rooms are richly furnished and decorated, and the walls adorned with landscapes and historical pictures, while the particular boast of a Parsi is to have his house brilliantly lt up with lamps and chandeliers of all descriptions. The best private dwelling-house in Bombay is Petit Hall, which is owned by a Parsi gentleman, the highly-respected Mr. Dinsha Manakyji Petit.

A great improvement has taken place among the Parsis in their mode of taking meals. Years ago they used, like the Hindus, to eat them squatting on the ground, and the viands were served to them in a brass dish, on which they were all spread out at the same time, a practice still in vogue among the poorer classes. The better classes have, for a long time past, adopted the table and chair with all the usual accompaniments of a Huropean dinner. At large parties the table is spread out in the English fashion,