The settlements at Thana and Chaul must have been founded at an early date; Mahomedan and European travellers mention them in speaking of these two places, without giving them their true name. However, the description given of them agrees very much with that of the Parsis; and this idea is confirmed by Odoric, an Italian monk who was travelling in India about the beginning of the fourteenth century. [28] The people (at Thana) were, according to him, idolaters, for they worshipped fire, serpents, and trees, and did not bury their dead, but carried them with great pomp to the fields, and cast them down as food for beasts and birds. Now, as the Hindoos either burn or bury their dead, the custom here described relates evidently to the Parsis who, later on, left this place in a body. A tradition preserved at Thana furnishes an amusing instance of the manner in which the colony contrived to escape a forced conversion to Christianity. The Parsis, constrained to renounce their faith, and having no means of escape, succeeded by cunning in avoiding the persecutions they were threatened with. They repaired in a body to the governor and declared themselves ready to embrace Christianity, demanding as an only favour a delay till the following Sunday before renouncing their faith, in order to take advantage of the few days of respite to worship the sacred fire and celebrate, for the last time, their festivals. The Portuguese were so pleased with this prompt submission to their will that a proclamation was issued to the effect that, on the day fixed, no one should interfere with the Mazdiens in the performance of their rites and ceremonies. The Parsis prepared a great feast, to which all the notables were invited; wine flowed freely, and while the guests were indulging themselves in it, the Parsis, to the sound of music and in the middle of the dancing, left the town and reached Kalyan, to the south of Thana, where they settled. [29] Travellers in India from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries have found Parsis in different places. There is reason to believe that at that time nothing of any importance befell the community. The Parsis lived amicably with the Hindoos, and were chiefly occupied in agriculture. About 1305 an event of considerable importance occurred in their history, at the time of a struggle maintained by the Hindoo chief of Sanjan against Mahmood Shah or Ala-ud-din Khilji (Parsee Prakash, p. 4), who had sent into Gujerat a strong army commanded by Alp Khan. [30]