B a n i a n s .
©
o f the place has received a confiderable check. Thevenot adds
another reafon, that in his time, about the year 1665, the river
was choaked up, which obftructed greatly all commerce from
Lahore, and other places to the north-eaft.
T his city is the great relidence of the Banians, or merchants
and brokers o f India. They are of this country, and have here
their chieftain. They are o f the great commercial caft o f the
Bhyfe, created, fay the Hindoos, by their Brimhas, or Supreme
Being, from his thighs and belly; but I ihall fay more of the
C asts hereafter. Thefe form fettlements in all the commercial
towns in India. They alfo fend colonies, for a certain number of
years, to the trading towns of Arabia and Perjia, and we find
them even as far as AJirakan. In the beginning of the prefent
century, about a hundred and fifty or two hundred of this
community went from Moult an to that city, and carry on a
great trade in pretious ftones ; they live in a large ftone Cara-
ttanfery. As they die away, or incline to return home, a fupply
is fent from India by their chief, feleffed from among their
young unmarried relations. As they have no females from
their own country, they keep, during their refidence at AJirakan,
Tartarian women, but .the contract is only during that
time. They are a fine race of men, and are highly efteemed for
the integrity of their dealings *. Thefe fupport the moft important
trade of AJirakan, by carrying it through AJlrabad to
the inland parts o f the Mogul empire. This points out a more
fouthern inland road- than was known in the middle ages, when
the merchants went by the way o f Bochara and Samarcand, to
the northern cities of India, Candahar and Cabul.
* C om municated to m e b y Dr. P a l l a s .
A t
A t the diliance of about fixty miles from its mouth, the
Chenauh divides into two branches, which flow from the north-
weft from their origin, at the foot of the Himmaleh chain. The
moil fouthern is the Rauvee, the old Hydraotes. - About twenty- T h e R a u v e e .
four miles from its mouth, on the fouthern fide, Hand the fort
and town of Toulamba. They lay in the route of Tamerlane, Toulamba.
and were plundered, and the inhabitants enflaved by that
monller of cruelty, juftly called in India “ the deftroying
Prince.” He excelled even his brother hero Alexander in the
flaughter of mankind. Tamerlane, in his march into India,.
had collected above a hundred thoufand prifoners: thefe happened
to ihew fome fymptoms of joy, at a repulfe the tyrant
had received before the citadel of Delhi; he inftantly ordered
all above fifteen years o f age to be maflacred in cold blood.
The fum was a hundred thoufand.
T he city o f Lahore is next, about a hundred and fifty miles L a h o r e .
difiant from Moultan. It is the capital of the Seiks, a people
which flatted up in the fifteenth century, under a Hindoo of the
name of Nanuck, born in 1470. They are a fet of religionifls,
tolerant in matters of faith like the Hindoos, but, unlike them, T h e S e i k s .
admit profelytes. They require a conformity in certain figns-
and ceremonies, but in other refpefts are pure monotheifts; they
worihip God alone, without image or intermediation. They
may be called the reformers of India. They retain alfo a cctlvi-
nijlical principle, and take an oath ever to oppofe a monarchical
government. They eat any kind o f meat excepting beef, for
like thvHindoos they hold the ox in the utmoft veneration..
Their general food is pork, probably becaufe it is forbidden by
4 , the.