108 The Ethnology of India. 
It must, however, be understood that a good deal of cultivation, in 
most parts of the country, is carried on by miscellaneous cultivators 
of a great variety of classes, who by caste properly belong to other 
professions. Cultivation is the one profession which is open to all 
alike, and is occasionally followed by almost all. In a great part of 
Hindustan in particular, wherever Rajpoots and Bramins are compara- 
tively few, and Koerees and Kachees are not numerous, there is im the 
present state of cultivation a large space not occupied by the classes 
which I have enumerated, and lists of tenant cultivators of these tracts 
present a very great variety. Itisthe same in Bengal. The caste 
of ‘ Telees’ are supposed to be properly oil-manufacturers, but whether 
(seeing the large growth of oilseeds) they were also in their origin 
oil-growers, or whether their multiplication is accidental, they certainly 
in many parts of the country form an important and respectable 
section of the agricultural community. Many of them are found both 
in Hindustan and in the Bombay Presidency, and in Bengal and 
Orissa they are particularly numerous and well-to-do. In Bengal the 
Tantees or weavers are also a prosperous class, and own a good deal 
of land. 
The Chumars or leather workers form a large proportion of the 
population of Hindustan, and are both labourers and cultivators, but 
they may perhaps better be put among the inferior labouring classes. 
For the rest the list of cultivating artisans and others would be 
endless. They must be classed under their own professions. 
Ture Mercantittr Ciassezs. 
First under this head, I will put— 
Ture KHATREEs. 
Trade is their main occupation, but in fact they have broad- 
er and more distinguished functions. Besides monopolising the 
trade of the Punjab and the greater part of Affghanistan, and 
doing a good deal beyond those limits, they are in the Punjab the 
chief civil administrators, and have almost all literate work in their 
hands. So far as the Sikhs have a priesthood, they are moreover the 
priests or gooroos of the Sikhs; both Nanuk and Govind were, and 
the Sodees and Bedees of the present day are, Khatrees. Thus then 
