140 The Ethnology of India. 
MIxED AND IMMIGRANT RACES oN THE Bombay Coast. 
The Mahommedan Borahs, with equal mercantile energy, are a 
pleasant contrast to the Moplahs in their quiet demeanour and ready 
acceptance of British rule. They seem to be of the sect of Ismaleahs or 
Assassins, who are supposed to hold murder among their tenets; but 
the Borahs are very mild, peaceable, shop-keeping assassins indeed. 
I believe that the name is that of the Hindu mercantile Borahs, but 
there is an evident infusion of immigrant blood, which probably came 
in together with their religion. It is probable that they are a cross 
between immigrants from the Persian Gulf and Hindu Borahs. 
Whether called Gulf-Arabs or Persians, the popnlation of the coun- 
tries at the Northern end of the Gulf is evidently more Persian than 
Arab, and there also seems to be a chief seat of the Ismaleah sect. 
The Borahs seem to some extent to cultivate and hold land, but their 
proper avocation is trade; and a most useful and prosperous race they 
are. They are very numerous in Bombay, and thence west and north- 
west; they have a large proportion of the trade of Western India, and 
form an important class in all the large towns up to about the centre 
of India. Boorhanpore is, I believe, the ‘city of the Borahs” to 
which they attach peculiar importance, and where they desire to lay 
their bones; and they are found in Ellichpore, Nagpore, Indore, 
Nusseerabad, and many other places in those directions. They are 
generally a fair good looking people, and deal largely in all sorts cf 
Kurope and foreign goods. 
The Parsees are so well-known that I need say little of them. 
They must form altogether a considerable population in the west of 
India, comprising many humble members in service, &c. as well as 
merchants. They are, I think, in feature, in the main, of a high-Arian 
type, somewhat intermixed perhaps after a very long residence in 
India, and somewhat blunted and thickened as compared to the sharper 
and more chiselled northern faces; but still there is generally the 
prominence of feature which we might expect from an extraction 
originally Persian. 
I believe that there are some black Jews on the Western Coast, 
but the comparatively recent Jew settlers somewhat numerous about 
Bombay, and who form a considerable community in Calcutta, are one 
