176 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL. 
The merchants of Hydrabad are reputed to be 
very wealthy, and are, for the most part, persons of 
good family, of education, and influence. They are 
almost exclusively Mohummedans ; but a traveller 
who visited the city about twenty years since, has 
given, in his sketches of India, an entertaining 
account of an eccentric Englishman who had esta- 
blished himself in the city, and enjoyed a thriving 
business. He writes : — 44 I passed one morning, 
and took tiffin with a famous English merchant, who 
holds a singular sort of durbar every morning, at 
which you see shroffs and merchants, officers and 
nobles, coming to beg, borrow, lend, or transact 
business ; all which is done according to the native 
customs. These Mr. P. observes, in everything 
connected with his establishment ; even when alone, 
to the sitting on the floor to a dinner served in 
their fashion ; reading the Arabian Nights with his 
Moorish wives ; and (de gustibus non est disputan- 
dum ,) listening with pleasure to the musical sounds 
of the native tom-tom. 
44 He is a man of uncommon talent and great 
information, — very popular among the natives, of 
course, and with the British also, for his liberality, 
ready and obliging politeness, and unbounded hospi- 
tality to all ; to the poor also he is very charitable. 
The choice of an Eastern mode of life is, with him, 
not altogether unnatural. He was born of a native 
mother, a female of Delhi, of good descent. He was 
