'Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia, including a journey from Bagdad by Mount Zagros, to Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, researches in Ispahan and the ruins of Persepolis, and journey from thence by Shiraz and Shapoor to the sea-shore. Description of Bussorah, Bushire, Bahrein, Ormuz, and Muscat, narrative of an expedition against the pirates of the Persian Gulf, with illustrations of the voyage of Nearchus, and passage by the Arabian Sea to Bombay.' [‎378] (409/582)

378 RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE SUBBEES.
first is a ceremony performed among themselves in some degree of
privacy ; but the latter is conducted openly, without their being
interrupted in it by any one. They have no standing church,
since their places of worship must be newly erected for every
new occasion. It is therefore usual with them, when these occa
sions occur, to make an enclosure of reeds, when, after a most
tedious process of purification, the ground becomes consecrated,
and they perform their worship therein, secluded from the eyes
of strangers, after which the building is pulled down and de
stroyed. Their attention to the purity of their food is carried
to an extraordinary degree, and equals that of the highest caste
of Bramins in India. No water that is not drawn from the river
by themselves in their own vessels, and even after that suffered
to subside, and be otherwise purified by their own hands, can be
drunk by them. If honey, or similar articles, are purchased by
them in the bazaar, it must have purified water poured on it,
and remain a certain time covered to be cleansed before it can
be eaten; and even fruit, though fresh from the tree, must be
similarly washed, to be purged of its defilement. It is, however,
singular enough, that while they carry this attention to religious
purity of food to a degree unknown to all other sects of Chris
tians, abstinence and fasts should be held in abomination by them ;
and that, contrary to the general Christian notion of this being
always acceptable to God, and tending to purge the soul, as well
as the body, of impure passions and desires, the Subbees regard it
as a heinous sin, and as a profanation of the gifts which the
Creator has so bountifully provided for his creatures. In their
moral character, they are neither esteemed more upright nor
more corrupt than their neighbours. One of their most distin
guished virtues is mutual confidence in each other ; and a breach
of trust in any way is said to be regarded by them as a more
damning offence than murder, fornication, and adultery, com
bined. It is, no doubt, this peculiar tenet, added to their notions
of defilement from strangers, and the constant intermarriage of