Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/114

 48 THE OIL-FIELDS AND THE FIRE-TEMPLE OF BAKU

After giving some idea of Zoroaster and his doctrines as fol- lowed by the early Persians, he adds : —

' These opinions, with a few alterations, are still maintained by some of the posterity of the antient Indians and Persians, who are called Gebers, or Gaurs, and are very zealous in preserving the religion of their ancestors ; particularly in regard to their veneration for the element of fire. What they commonly call the Everlasting Fire, near Baku, before which these people offer their supplications, is a phsenomenon of a very extraordi- nary nature, in some measure peculiar to this country, and therefore deserves English miles north-east by east from the city of Baku, on dry rocky land. There are several antient temples built with stone, supposed to have been feet high. Amongst others there is a little temple, in which the Indians now worship : near the altar, about 3 feet high, is a large hollow cane, from the end of which issues a blue flame, in colour and gentleness not unlike a lamp that burns with spirits, but seemingly more pure. These Indians affirm, that this flame has continued ever since the flood, and they believe it will last to the end of the world ; that if it was resisted or suppressed in that place, it would rise in some other. Here are generally forty or fifty of these poor devotees, who come on a pilgrimage from their own country, and subsist upon wild sallary, and a kind of Jerusalem artichokes, which are very good food, with other herbs and roots, found a little to the northward. Their business is to make expiation, not for their own sins only, but for those of others, and they continue the longer time, in proportion to the

naphthe blanc ; mais quelques pouces que les autres, ^toit plac^e au milieu, plus has que la surface g^n^rale de par manifere de preeminence. D' autres I'aire du sable. Notre compagnie ne Cannes etoient tres-press^es autour de vit qu'uneseule miserable [1. 358] salle, celle-1^, de mani^re k former trois oti I'on dit que ces merveilleux edifices ouvertures au sommet, pour livrer se voient, et un autre appartement fort passage k trois flammes bleues-pales. mesquin, ou demeurent les religieux. . A Pepoque dont je parle, plusieurs de lis n'etoient pas alors plus de 40. lis ces Cannes etoient eteintes. Mais afin introduisirent tr6s-volontiers nos mes- que I'ambassadeur et sa compagnie sieurs dans la chambre dont je viens pussent voir I'effet que ces Cannes pro- de parler. II y avoit une place s6pa- duisoient quand elles etoient en ac- ree, comme nos choeurs dans les tern- tivite, on apporta un vase rempli de pies protestans, et que vous pouvez naphthe pur ; on en mit un peu sur le nommer leur autel, comme fait Han- sable h, I'entour des roseaux, et par le way : quelques Cannes creuses etoient moyen d'un morceau de papier allum6, fAantees dans ce sable pur. Une de le naphthe exhala de la flamme h. tra- ces Cannes, plus grande et plus grosse vers les roseaux.'

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