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

130 HISTORY OF THE PARSIS. [CHAP. II.

and financial point of view, as an ample supply of fresh water is ensured to the neighbouring population and their cattle in seasons of drought, and a large tract of land made protective to the State, which, but for the improvement, would have remained sterile and uncultivated.”

Vikaji Merji’s charities to his fellow-religionists were on an equally extensive scale. He built at his own expense no less than five “ daremehrs” or places of worship—at Tarapur, Belapur, Hydrabad, and Sikandrabad; four towers of silence—at Belapur, Hydrabad, Sholapur, and Aurangabad, besides establishing several small schools and other institutions. But his memory is still dearly cherished among his countrymen in the Mofussil in connection with the sinking of fresh-water wells and the construction and repair of tanks, and more particularly for the building of numberless “dharmshalas” or rest-houses for the use of travellers and the poor in various parts of the Bombay Presidency, for which alone he received the special congratulations and thanks of the Directors of the East India Company.

Kharshedji Manakji Shroff was a highly distinguished member of the Parsi community. He was born in the year 1764, and died at the patriarchal age of eighty-one. He has been truly described as the people’s friend. Though he had an extensive

business with the Commissariat as a contractor, he