114 The Ethnology of India. 



Merchants, and they are also most daring speculators, as is well known 

 in the markets of Bombay and Calcutta. Indeed they often carry the 

 rage for speculation to the point of gambling. In respect of physical 

 courage, however, the case is quite different. Both their habits and 

 their religious ideas make the use of a sword a thing unknown to 

 them, and they have no affectation of personal manliness. 



If the Banees are not generally very tall or strong, they are not much 

 the contrary, and they are generally very fair. For this latter feature 

 their indoor avocations may in part account, but that alone is not, 

 I think, sufficient. When one gets peeps of the faces of their women 

 on the occasion of great religious gatherings and the like, they 

 seem to be fair beyond almost any other Hindustanee caste. The 

 men, though flabby and un-muscular looking, are, I think, to an 

 unprejudiced eye often by no means bad looking. They have, how- 

 ever, none of the high-Arian sharpness of feature, but rather a sleek 

 comely pudding-faced kind of countenance, something like those old 

 Egyptian faces which are said to come nearest to the Hindu type. 

 They are, I think, generally reputed more grasping than I have de- 

 scribed the Khatrees to be ; are more often accused of being hard 

 on those in their power, and exercising a severe tyranny of the purse. 

 But even in their case I believe that this is a good deal exaggerated, and 

 that many of those who abuse them most, can least get on without 

 them. Possessed as they are of so much capital and energy, there 

 can be no doubt that, from an industrial point of view, the acquisition 

 by them, from indolent and unprovident proprietors, of a good deal 

 of the land is beneficial, when it becomes their absolute property. 

 They, almost alone among superior landholders, perform something of 

 the industrial functions of landlords, and they know too well the 

 value of ryots, altogether to expend and sell up those in whom they 

 have a permanent interest. There is to be set, on the other side, the 

 political weakness resulting from the existence of large numbers of 

 strong-armed pre-owners still, as they think, natural proprietors, side by 

 side with new owners who in a difficulty will not fight. Still, if the 

 Bunneahs will not fight, they may perhaps pay others to fight for 

 them. It is only when they are set to 'exploiter' the ryots in a 

 speculative way, as mere temporary lessees and middlemen under 

 the great superior Zemindars, that they are often a great curse. 



