The regulations of the book of the law with regard to the burial of corpses and the places of exposure are still strictly observed by the Parsees. Great care is taken at the erection of a Dakhma that the rain-water can run off from the bier of the corpse. At the last moment a dog is brought into the presence of the dying person, so that its eye may be directed on him; and when a woman with child dies two dogs are brought, because two lives are in question. The eye of the dog has the power to keep the evil spirits at a distance. But every one must remain at nine paces distance from the dying person. After death the two corpse-bearers at once strip the body--their hands are protected from immediate contact by napkins made of old clothes--and carry it on a bier of iron--for metal contracts less pollution than wood--accompanied by the prayers of the priests, to the place of burial. The kinspeople follow the corpse in silence to within ninety paces of the Dakhma. For the first three nights the priests and kinsmen repeat continually the prescribed prayers for the soul of the dead; in the third night the decision is made at the bridge of Chinvat (p. 178). The burial-places of the Parsees at Bombay are situated on a mountain on the coast, on the summit of which several hollows have been cut. From a distance the relatives look eagerly to this summit, to see whether the vultures are already attacking the corpse, and which part of it they first consume. For the first year after death a prayer is said daily before meals for the soul of the dead to the Fravashis of the pure,[429] and a service is held on the day of the month on which the death took place. In the years that follow, on the fourth, tenth, and thirtieth day of each month, as the book prescribes, but above all on the festival of all souls--_i.e._ on the feast of the ten nights during which the Fravashis come down (p. 224)--prayers are said for the dead.