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

116 ATISTORYV OF THE PARSIS. [CHAP. II.

my own valuable watch and chain, expressing at the same time, before the gentlemen who accompanied me and a crowd of the natives employed or settled on his estate, my delight with what I had witnessed, and the gratification I should have in conveying to the Board and to my superiors in England information of all I had seen, and my sense of the value of such improvements as he had made and projected, both to the Government and to the country. Framji Kavasji was delighted with the approbation I gave him. He would persevere, he said, whatever discouragement he might at first meet with in his plans; my watch, he added, should be preserved in his family; and he deemed the gift bestowed on the spot, and in the manner it was, as rendering stronger than ever the pledge he had given to Government to improve in every way the lands they have granted him.”

The same distinguished statesman bears testimony to the intelligence and enterprise of the Parsis in the following words :—‘ There is no body of natives in India so remarkable for their intelligence and enterprise as the Parsis. Bombay has owed its advancement in a great degree to this class; and in the actual condition of this Presidency it appears to me a political consideration of much importance to strenethen their attachment to Government by new ties which are of a nature calculated to combine the