Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/17

 12 s. vin. JAN. i, 1921.], NOTES AND QUERIES. 9 Yorkshire collectors. I take it that Hull I Seas, are actually peopled by the relicts of these Public Library (Mr. T. Shepperd) owns an J?T n Persians. the best East Riding collection. for "{, a P ?^i'e The Exeter Free Library has undoubtedly who went that voyage, to whom I was indebted the finest collection of Devon books in the for many of the particulars published therein ; world and the library of T. Cann Hughes and who is dead since the y were published. Of of. Lancaster is probably the best private ' this * entleman I ver * carefullv enquired what the -|-x -. 11 ". - I J. tCKOV_fAJ.O V>t.iti YY JJ.J.V/AJL JLLJ. U. U^;U. JJ.J.XAA CVJJV4. JO.1O y^J_H - Devonian library. My own collection of panions to advance that notion, which at first something like 3,500 books, &c,. of Cornish sight is none of the most probable. He told me interest may be considered the best Cornish the causes were chiefly three : First, that their collection and information from them con- I ^^^^^AJ^^^*?^^ 10 ^^^^ cerning the county I shall be glad to supply to correspondents of ' N. & Q. ' I inhabitants of Africa, or of India ; for whereas the J. HAMBLEY ROWE. | former are of a black, and the latter of a reddish or iron colour ; these were of a light olive, yet their aspects differed absolutely from the Chinese or Tartars. The second cause he assigned, was (ftitirtpr their worshipping the Sun and Fire ; turning ^Z ********* towards the east when they prayed, and using a WE must request correspondents desiring in J low or whispering voice, all of which are suitable &328S sss ssis* sas $sr = ^S^^VSSfS a order that answer n,ay be sent to the Loot. | g-ggtbyg.* ff^^'^ SMS their great industry in several ingenious nianu- WAS THERE A PARSI COLONY IN THE I factures. I shall not take upon me to determine e, Q- T i what credit is due to these conjectures, but shall &EAS ,?- -bince his famous exodus content myself with observing, that they are irom Persia in the eighth century A.D., the worth remembering ; and considering perhaps, Parsi has emigrated to whatever places his OUT posterity may have an opportunity by con- instinct commercial, benevolent or roving versing with these people, to enter into them has drifted him to. Naoroji Rustomji Seth more minutel y-" was the first Parsi, as a matter of fact the Commodore Roggewin's Voyage, referred first Indian, to go to England in 1723 A.D. to m the above excerpt, seems to be a scarce Australia, Germany and China, Natal and work. It is certainly not in any of the Ceylon, Arabia and Aden, Karachee and Bombay libraries. Whether it could be Rangoon, Madras and Mecca, and various traced in Calcutta libraries, I know not. parts of this country have all claimed him But there is one book ' The Voyage of Cap- as their denizen in one or other capacity tain Don Felipe Gonzalez to Easter Island, as an agriculturer, shop-keeper, trader, 1770-71,' by B. G. Corney, 1908 (Hakluyt traveller or settler. Society Publication, Series 2, vol. xiii.)in the It is in Pinkerton's ' Voyages and Travels ' B <> ni |> a y Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (vol. ix., London, 1811, p. 229) that I have whlch c(mtams an extract from the official come across a curious passage which seems lo ^ l . f < J n . e " Mx ' Jac Bgggeveen to point to a probable Colony of the Parsis in * hls, Kf^tS 7 f Island ' . the South Seas. It runs thus : (?P-, 1 ' 26 )' These P^ges make no mention of the conjecture of a Parsi colony in the lay the whole plan of the Persian gouth Seas, which, according to the above ySSffSSiS^ the Commodore ha! made in his tanism, is very near the same that it was three book of voyage. thousand years ago ; and yet the Parsees, who In the words of the above excerpt, I shall the ancient people of Persia, no t, for the present, take upon myself to to whom the constitution belonged, are now j-, j J.TI- reduced to so inconsiderable a remnant, that it determine what credit is due to this con- is doubted whether there may be ten thousand jecture of Roggewin, but shall content myself souls left in Persia of this race. Those that are with observing that it is worth remembering ed, i erve their primitive customs, | an d investigating by abler hands. In the _ itime will any reader enlighten me indeed "true", that thenT is' another small colony^f I as to any mention of a Parsi colony in these people in the Ihdies, and it may not be the South Seas in Commodore Roggewin's .iss to put the reader in mind of a conjecture, Voyage or in any other book ? mentioned m Commodore Roggewin's voyage, -D XT that some islands, discovered by him in the South I Tardeo, Bombay. ifc .. TVT - MuNSHI -