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

xvi INTRODUCTION.

which the Parsis were called upon to take up arms, and the struggle was creditable to their spirit and courage. The Mahomedans were repulsed, and the result of the encounter was admitted to be due to the valour of the Parsis. But the Mahomedans returned in increased numbers and with renewed zeal to retrieve their misfortune, and they succeeded only too well. The Parsis had to abandon their old settlement in consequence of this fresh and successful invasion; and they seem to have established their chief abode at Surat. But for several centuries the darkness of ignorance descends upon their movements, and no specific mention is made of the Parsis until the reion of Akbar, the enlightened contemporary of Queen Elizabeth, when a member of the race visited Delhi and pleaded the cause of his kinsmen with such tact and fervour that he returned to Western India with some privileges, and the confidence that that Mogul Emperor at least would bestow justice and protection.

Shortly after this memorable visit to the Court of perhaps the wisest prince who ever directed the destinies of an Eastern people, which will be found recorded in its due place in the following pages, the most interesting epoch in Parsi history begins, for at an early period of the seventeenth century they had established a connection and intimate business rela-

tions with the different foreign factories which carried