112 The, Ethnology of India. 
I suspect, of some Khatree sect. The Khatrees do not seem as a rule 
to reach the western Coast; the Guzerat and Cutch traders appear 
to be Bunneeahs (or Banians) not Khatrees, and in the Bombay 
market I cannot find that they have any considerable place. In 
Scinde, however, I find Gn Captain Burton’s book) an account ofa 
race of “pretended Khsatryas who are really Banians of the 
Nanuk-Shahi (Sikh) faith,” and who trade and have a large share 
of public offices. These are evidently Khatrees. I had supposed the 
Lohanee merchants to be Pathans coming under much the same cate- 
gory as the “ Povindeahs,” but again Captain Burton makes mention 
of the “ Lohanos, a Mooltanee caste of Banians,” a robust and good- 
looking race who trade with Central Asia, and also with the Arabian 
Coast, who form a very large proportion of the Government servants 
in Scinde, and who also do some agriculture and labour. I cannot at 
this moment ascertain whether these Lohanos are really Banians or 
Khatrees, probably I think the latter. Palgrave again mentions 
among the Indian traders of the Arabian Coast, as distinguished from 
Banians, people whom he calls ‘ Loothians’ or Loodianah men. I 
take it that these must be Khatrees, unless indeed they may possibly 
be Kashmeree shawl merchants. Loodianah is a large and thriving 
town of mercantile Khatrees, with a numerous colony of Kashmeree 
shawl-weavers. 
The Khatrees claim to be the descendants of the old Kshatryas, 
and I am inclined to think that they really have the best claim to 
that honour. With all their enterprise, it is difficult to imagine them 
so completely domiciled in Affghanistan, among so alien a people, if 
they are entirely foreigners in that country. It is well known that 
the Pathans themselves have advanced into the North Hastern por- 
tion of the country which we call Affghanistan, within comparatively 
recent and historical times; and although the upper valleys of the 
Indian Caucasus have probably all along been held by pre-Hindu 
tribes, there seems to be little doubt that the lower valleys of the 
Cabul country were once Hindu. To this day the peaks of the 
‘ Sufed Koh’ between Jalalabad and Cabul bear the palpably Hindu 
names of ‘Seeta Ram” and such like. 
The old Sanscrit books make the Bramins and Khsatryas to have 
remotely sprung from a common origin. May it not be that in early 
