110 The Ethnology of India. 
but I think there can be no doubt that they are ethnologically the 
same, and they are certainly mixed up with Khatrees in their avoca- 
tions. I shall treat the whole kindred as generically Khatrees. 
Though the Rors have not usually risen to such high posts, at 
least one of Runjeet Sing’s ministers was of this class. 
Speaking of the Khatrees then thus broadly, they have, as I have 
said, the whole trade of the Punjab and of most of Affghanistan. No 
village can get on without the Khatree who keeps the accounts, does 
the banking business, and buys and sells the grain, They seem too 
to get oh with the people better than most traders and usurers of this 
kind. Of course, like all people so situated, they are often a good 
deal abused, but in a Punjabee village I think that the Khatree is 
generally rather a popular character and on friendly terms with his 
clients ; at any rate they appreciate the necessity for him, and are by 
no means anxious to get rid of him. In Affghanistan, among a rough 
and alien people, notwithstanding occasional exceptions, the Khatrees 
are as a rule confined to the position of humble dealers, shop-keepers 
and money-lenders; but in that capacity the Pathans seem to look on 
them as a kind of valuable animal, and a Pathan will steal another 
man’s Khatree, not only for the sake of ransom (as is frequently done 
on the Peshawar and Hazarah frontier), but also as he might steal a 
milch-cow, or as Jews might, I dare say, be carried off in the middle 
ages, with a view to render them profitable. 
I do not know the exact limits of Khatree occupation to the west, 
but certainly in all eastern Affghanistan they seem to be just as 
much a part of the established community as they are in the Punjab. 
They find their way far into Central Asia, but the farther they get, 
the more depressed and humiliating is their position. In Turkistan, 
Vambery speaks of them with great contempt as yellow-faced 
Hindus of a cowardly and sneaking character. Under Turcoman 
rule, they could hardly be otherwise. They have even found their 
way to St. Petersburgh and made money there. They are in fact 
the only Hindus known in Central Asia. 
In the Punjab they are so numerous that they cannot all be rich 
and mercantile, and many of them hold land, cultivate, take service, 
and follow various avocations. But I do not think that there is in 
the plains such a thing as a Khatree village or Khatree community, 
