'Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia, including a journey from Bagdad by Mount Zagros, to Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, researches in Ispahan and the ruins of Persepolis, and journey from thence by Shiraz and Shapoor to the sea-shore. Description of Bussorah, Bushire, Bahrein, Ormuz, and Muscat, narrative of an expedition against the pirates of the Persian Gulf, with illustrations of the voyage of Nearchus, and passage by the Arabian Sea to Bombay.' [‎379] (410/582)

INDIANS RESIDENT AT BUSSORAH.
379
their sons and daughters with each other, which keeps them
together, like the Jews, and all other unsocial castes of religion,
who seek not to augment their numbers by converts, yet, by
the selfishness of their institutions, preserve them from being
lessened by mingling with others.—The heads of the few families
of Subbees here are mostly mechanics and handicrafts, more par
ticularly as smiths and workers in metals; and even in the towns
enumerated, where their community is more extensive, they
generally confine themselves to the exercise of these and similar
trades, without attaching themselves to agriculture or the profes
sion of arms; in which particular they resemble the Jews of
Europe, where the profession of the stock- broker Often a local commercial agent in the Gulf who regularly performed duties of intelligence gathering and political representation. , or loan-raiser,
the art of the goldsmith or jeweller, and the occupation of a
pedlar, are those mostly followed, rather than the Jews of Asia,
who confine themselves to dealing in general merchandize, and
are seldom seen as mechanics or handicrafts in any way.
The Indians resident in Bussorah are chiefly Banians, and are
all employed as merchants on their own account, and as brokers
and agents for others. They enjoy, as well as the Armenians, the
countenance and protection of the British Resident; the heads
of both, indeed, are actually attached to the service of the East
India Company at their factory An East India Company trading post. . Some of them have direct com
munication with merchants of their own caste at Bombay ; but
more of them trade through the medium of the Banians settled at
Muscat, and few or none have any immediate transactions of trade
directly with Bengal. To conform in some degree to the manners
of the place, the turban peculiar to the Banians of India is laid
aside, and generally a red one, half in the Arab and half m the
Indian form, is substituted in its place. The rest of the dress is a
mixture of the Persian and the Arab, without being exactly e i tlier '
though no part of the Indian costume seems to be retained, and
by most of them even the sectarial mark on the forehead is
omitted to be worn. There is, besides all these approximations to
foreign usages, a sufficient laxity to show that the scruples even of
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