In Persia, however, it remained more distant from him and represented the purest offspring of the good spirit; therefore no uncleanness could be allowed to enter it. Its only function appears to be the repelling of the fiends by its blaze. In every place where the Pārsīs are settled, an everlasting fire is still kept, which is always fed by perfumes and costly woods, and wherever its flames are carried by the wind, it kills thousand of fiends. No degradation must be inflicted upon this sacred element, even blowing it with the human breath is a crime, because the outgoing breath is unclean; burning the dead is therefore the most criminal act; in the time of Strabo[194] it was a capital crime, and the Avesta places it in the list of sins for which there is no atonement. Water was looked upon in the same light, and throwing dead matter into it was as unpardonable as to pollute the sacred flame with its presence. The Magi are said to have overthrown a king for having built bath- houses, and the Jews were forbidden to practice their ablutions; in some cases the sick were even forbidden to drink it, unless it was decided that death would be caused by longer abstinence. The earth was equally holy, for in her bosom there dwelt Spenta Ārmaiti, the goddess of the earth, and to defile her sacred dwelling by burying the dead was also a deed for which there was no atonement. In earlier times the Persians practiced burial even after burning had been forbidden. Cambyses aroused the national indignation by cremating the body of Amasis, and years later the Persians were still burying their dead. Afterward, however, when the Mazdean law became dominant, the worship of the earth was included, although it was sometime before it was considered as sacred as fire and water. In later times the Persians builded Dakhmas, or “Towers of Silence” for the bodies of their dead; these towers were about twenty feet high, and they enclosed an annular stone pavement on which the bodies were placed. These towers were usually built on the summit of a mountain far from the haunts of men. A barren cliff was chosen, free from trees or water, and the tower was even separated from the earth herself, for it was isolated by a layer of stones and bricks, while it was claimed that a golden thread ran between the tower and the earth. Here, afar from the world of men, the dead were left to lie “beholding the sun.” The Avesta and commentary are especially emphatic upon this point, for “it is as if the dead man’s life were thus prolonged, since he can still behold the sun.” PUNISHMENTS.