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 population 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 of 

 Europe 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 



