BANYANS. 



333 



Pagodas not being permitted, they meet for 

 pnblic devotions at a honse in the southern 

 quarter of the city, where most of them live, 

 and lately they have been allowed to build a 

 kind of fane at Mnazi Moyya. As usual with 

 Banyans, the Bhattias have no daily prayers : on 

 such festivals as the Pitri-paksha — the 6 Manes- 

 Fortnight,' from the 13th to the 18th of the 

 month Bhadrapad — they call in, and fee a Brah- 

 man to assist them. Their proper priests are 

 the Pokarna, who, more scrupulous than others, 

 refuse to cross the sea : the Sarsat Brahmans, so 

 common in Sind and Cutch, are the only high- 

 caste drones who to collect money will visit 

 Zanzibar and Maskat. With a characteristic 

 tenderness, these Banyans cook grain at the 

 landing-places for the wild slaves, half-starved 

 by the c middle-passage,' and inclination as well 

 as policy everywhere induces them to give alms 

 largely. Apostasy is exceedingly rare : none 

 Islamize, except those who have been perverted 

 by Moslems in their youth, or who form connec- 

 tions with strange women. The Comoro men, • 

 here the only energetic proselytizers, have, how- 

 ever, sometimes succeeded : a short time ago 

 two Bhattias became Mohammedans, and their 

 fellow caste-men declared that the Great Destruc- 



