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from being a comparatively small caste, and more addicted to foreign than domestic
commerce, they are not so well known to us in India as many castes of less importance ;
except in Bombay itself and in Guzerat, Cutch, and Kattywar, where their red turbans)
often with a peak in front, strike the stranger as differing from the ordinary head-dress'
of the Hindus.
Among their ranks have been found of late years some of the most active and intel­
ligent of Hindu reformers, as well as some of the most bigotted upholders of ancient
abuses. They are all Vaishnavas, and the notorious Maharaja case" dragged to light
the worst peculiarities of a decaying superstition ; but.its frightful revelations did scanty
justice to the courage and high principle of a few men, whose exertions in the cause of
truth and purity of life arc likely to have a permanent influence on the moral history of
India.
I have met with no rational explanation of the fact that, whilst the Bhattias in India
as well as in Africa, arc most jealously observant of Hindu rites and formalities in their most
rigid form ; while a visit to Europe entails absolute exclusion from all religious, social, and
caste privileges, they have always been permitted to visit and reside in East Africa, without
incurring more penalty than a scries of purgatorial observances of no great severity, and
not entailing more than a few days' exclusion from caste and social communion.
I have been told that a residence on an African island, like Zanzibar or Mozambique,
is not, according to the Shastris, such a separation from the land of orthodox Hinduism
as a residence on the mainland would be. But this distinction is certainly not now
observed in practice; another and perhaps more probable explanation is, that the practice
of visiting and trading with the East Coast of Africa had become habitual to this class
before the extreme restrictions of the present Hindu system were invented; and that
an old established and profitable exception was allowed lobe made in favour of an influential
caste. But none of these explanations satisfactorily account for the anomaly.
Khojahs, Mehmons, and Bo hr as.—The Khojahs, Mehmons, and Bohras are well known
to all residents in Western India as Mohomedan traders, who are found everywhere almost
monopolizing, by dint of frugal industry, many most profitable branches of trade. In a
Western Indian market town or seaport, the tinman, dealer in marine stores, locksmith, or
ironmonger, dealer in looking-glasses, furniture, glass or china, millinery and small drapery
wares, and most of the pedlars, are generally Bohras. The Khojahs and Mehmons are
mostly occupied in foreign trade. Cutch and the Kattywar ports, especially Jamnuggur,
Surat, and Bombay, are their usual homes; the few Bohras who are engaged in agriculture
are reckoned among the best cultivators in the finest cotton-producing villages near
Broach, and Khojahs and Mehmons bear a similar character in Sind, Cutch, and
Kattywar. All three classes are very reticent regarding their origin or religious tenets,
partly from reserve, but very frequently from want of knowledge or interest in the subject,
all their thoughts from their early youth being generally turned to business. All are
sectaries, deemed more or less heretical by the orthodox division of Moslem. The Bjhras
and Khojahs seem, in part at least, of taemitic or Persian descent; but they, as well as the
Mehmons, are charged, by mere orthodox sects, with various remnants of idolatrous and
mystical worship. The history of the Khojahs has been carefully investigated in the
course of the remarkable trial in the High Court of Bombay when the origin and tenets
of the sect were traced with judicial precision by the counsel in discussing, and by Sir
Joseph Arnold in deciding on the claims of Agha Khan to be spiritual head of the sect, and
lineal representative of the ** old man of the mountain."
On the African Coast and in Madagascar all these classes show a tendency to the
kinds of trade usually followed by them in India. They generally monopolise all that the
Hindu Bhattias and Banians do not possess of the trade in cloth and cotton goods,
ironmongery, cutlery, and china and small wares. In Madagascar they assert that they
have been, for at least a century, settled at Nosi Beh and other ports, and that they preceded
the Hindus on the African Cna6t.
At larger ports a few representatives of all castes will be found ; but generally one or
other caste will be found to preponderate at all the smaller ports. The Bhattias and
Banians are most numerous at and near Zanzibar, the Khojahs on the islands and mainland
of the equatorial regions, and the Bohras to the south in Madagascar, and to the north in
Gallaand Somaliland.
Everywhere, wherever there is any foreign trade, it passes through the hands of some
Indian trader. No produce can be collected for the European, American, or Indian market
but through him ; no imports can be tjistributed to the natives of the country but through
his agency. At every port the shops which collect or distribute articles of commerce are
kept almost exclusively by Indians. Throughout our whole circuit from Zanzihar round by
Mozamnique and Madagascar and up to Cape Guardafui, we did not, except at Johanna,
meet half a dozen exceptions to the rule that every shopkeeper was an Indian. We could
converse everywhere, with the whole body of retail traders and local merchants, in Hindus­
tani or Guzerati, and their accounts, at every shop, were kept in Guzarati or Cutchi, by
double entty, with the proverbial neatness and clearness of a Guzerat Accountant.
Some of the large firms have been long established, and have a large capital. But, in
general, the career of the young Indian trade in Africa is very similar to that of the
Marwari adventurers in Central or Southern India. Arriving at his future scene of
business with little beyond credentials to his fellowcastemcn, after, perhaps, a brief
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