110 Tlie 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 on 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, 



