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Cotton is cultivated in every part of Bengal; and that grown in the eastern districts is of very superior quality, fit for the most delicate manufactures. Large quantities are likewise brought from the banks of the Jumna and the Deccan; but the best import is that brought by land from Nagpoor to Mirzapoor, in the province of Benares, and sold there for about £2. 5s. per cwt. although its average price in Nagpoor is not more than two-pence half-penny per pound. The name of this article is derived from the Arabic kutn, pronounced cootn.

Europe was anciently supplied with silk through the medium of India; the original language of which has names both for the silk-worm and for the silk in a state of manufacture. Amongst the numerous tribes of Hindoos, derived from a mixture of the original tribes, are two separate classes, whose appropriate occupations were the feeding of silk-worms, and the spinning of silk. A peasant who feeds his own silk-worms, has full employment for his family. The rearing of them is, however, chiefly confined to the district of Burdwan, and the banks of the Bhagirathai and Great Ganges, from the fork of these rivers to the distance of one hundred miles down their streams. The Company's investment is made principally at Cossimbazar, Rungpoor, Malda, Radnagore, Bauliah, Jungeypoor and Comercolly. Much is also procured from wild silk-worms. Four crops of mulberry leaves are obtained from the same field in the course of a year, and many worms are fed on other plants besides the mulberry.

Indigo, which derives its name from India, has been cultivated there from the earliest period, and that country anciently supplied all Europe, till the produce of America engrossed the public attention, and drove the Asiatic manufacture out of the market. The perseverance of a few individuals has restored this branch of Bengalee commerce to its original channel, by no other means than the manufacture of a superior article; for, with respect to the culture, no material change has taken place in the practice of the natives. The total manufacture of indigo in Bengal, in 1807 and 1808, was not less than 120,000 factory maunds; and the aggregate sold at the East India Company's sales, in 1810, amounted to 5,253,489 lbs. and netted £1,942,328. In 1814 no fewer than 102,524 factory maunds (8,200,000 lbs.) were entered at the customhouse at Calcutta.

The consumption of animal food is insufficient to render the rearing of cattle an object of any considerable profit, although stock can be grazed at the very low rate of half a rupee, or even a quarter of a rupee (the former equal to 1s 3d. the latter to 74d. of our money), per annum. The tattoos, or native horses, are a thin, ill-shaped, miserable breed, unfit for labor; bullocks alone are used in the plough and team. The sheep are a dark, gray-colored, thin, diminutive breed; but when fattened make excellent mutton. Some of them have four horns, two on each side of the head. Pariah dogs infest the streets throughout all the towns, jackals every thicket, and the approach of the enemy is announced by the howling of the numerous flocks of them which

then quit their retreats in the jungles. Apes and monkeys swarm in the woods, and, being sacred animals, are often fed by pious Hindoos. The brahminy, or sacred ox, rambles about the villages without molestation, and is both pampered and caressed by the people, who consider this a meritorious act of religion. Crows, kites, sparrows, and mayanas (coracias Indica), familiarly hop about the habitations of the Bengalese ; and storks, from their erect stately gait called adjutants by the European soldiers, are almost as common as the toads, snakes, lizards, and insects, on which they feed.

Fish is extremely plentiful, of which a great diversity of kinds is found in the Ganges and its branches. They often become the food of the poorest natives, and the smallest kind are equally acceptable in a curry, the standing dish in every Hindoo family, which, with a pilau nearly comprehends their whole art of cookery. The bickly, or cockup fish, are extremely rich; but the highest flavored fish in Bengal, and perhaps in the whole world, is the polynemus paradisea, or mango fish, so called from its appearing in the rivers during the mango season. Mullet are found in all the rivers, and are killed with small shot, as they swim against the stream. The turtles are indifferent, but the small oysters from the coast of Chittagong are excellent. Alligators and porpuses abound in all the rivers of Bengal.

The natives of Bengal are handsome and lively, of highly polished manners, possessing a soft expression of countenance, and mildness of character. Though thin, they are small and well shaped, of an olive tint, black hair and eyes, oval face and aquiline noses. The clothing of the poor consists of little else than a rag round their waists. The rich, when abroad, have dresses much like the Mahommedans; but within doors resume their old national costume, consisting of different pieces of cloth twisted round the body, with one end tucked into the folds. Upon the head nothing is worn. The women rub red lead on their foreheads, blacken their teeth with a preparation of vitriol and iron filings; and are peculiarly fond of trinkets. Rings of shell lac round the arms, and bracelets of mother-of-pearl are favorite ornaments; as are also trinkets generally; and proud is the woman who hears herself described as walking like a duck or an elephant, having teeth as black and red as the seeds of the pomegranate; a nose like a parrot's beak; hands and feet as wide spreading as the waterlily; lips as red as the fruit of the tálacúcha, and a chin as plump as a mango. Widows of a pure caste, however handsome, are stripped of their ornaments, condemned to sleep on the ground, exposed to damp, vermin, and other inconveniences, and to act as menial servants to the young, who are decked out in the finery of which their elders have been deprived. This, in all probability, is one reason why so many prefer the funeral pile, with the expectation of bliss in another world.

The natives of the mountains beyond Bengal, along the northern boundary, indicate, by their features, a Tartar origin. The inhabitants of the eastern hills and plains adjacent, are obviously of peculiar derivation, whilst the elevated tract

included in the western part of Bengal, is peopled by several races of mountaineers, the probable aborigines of the country. Distinguished in character, language, manners, features, and religion, from the Hindoo nation, the race descended from this stock people the vast mountains which bulge from the centre of India; and some tribes of them have not yet emerged from the savage state. In the mixed population of the middle districts, the Mahommedans and Hindoos claim the pre-eminence. Among the former may be discriminated the Moghul, the Afghan, and their immediate descendants from the naturalised Mussulmen; and among the latter the peculiar traits of a Bengalese from those of the Hindostany. The native Bengalese have been thought pusillanimous; and the descendants of foreign settlers are fond of tracing their origin to the countries of their ancestors. No native, however, has any motive to distinguish himself in the army, as he cannot rise higher than a soubahdar, a rank inferior to an ensign.

Slavery, in its severest sense, is unknown in Bengal. Domestic slavery is, indeed, allowed by law, but the slaves are rather treated as hereditary servants. The marriage of slaves is never impeded, and many children are born in that condition; but it is thought disreputable to sell them, and an act of piety to grant their manumission. Parents themselves usually meet the demands of the market, by disposing of the children which poverty and misfortune have rendered them unable to support. The prices given even in that case for infants is extremely small, except either when the purchaser is a Brahmin of some religious order, who wants a disciple to assist him in begging, or when he is the master of a troop of dancing girls and prostitutes, who wishes to replenish his stock. Slaves in Bengal are, in all cases, placed under the protection of the law.

Of the population of Bengal various estimates have been given at different times; none of which, however, are thought equal to the real amount. In 1789 Sir William Jones estimated the inhabitants of Bengal and Bahar at 24,000,000. Mr. Coleman, in 1793, made them 27,000,000. Another estimate, formed in 1790, carries the population of Bengal, Bahar, and Benares, to 32,787,500. Under the direction of the marquis Wellesley, in 1801, was taken a more accurate survey than any of the preceding; the result of which has never been communicated to the public in any authentic form. The average upon the whole, in well-peopled districts, is about 200 to every square mile, and the total population of the three provinces already named more than 30,000,000. The population of Bengal, under the British government, has undergone a progressive increase, surpassing that of England, although it has met with some severe checks: as in 1770, when one-fifth of the inhabitants perished by famine; in 1784, when the same calamity prevailed; in 1787, when great numbers in the eastern provinces perished by inundation; and in 1788, when there was a partial scarcity.

Small villages line the banks of the rivers as thickly as in the most populous parts of China, and are surprisingly numerous. The cheerful,

bustling mu.titudes of men, women, children, poultry, and cattle, all mixed and crowded together, which continually meet the traveller's eye, as he sails or is towed along from place to place, show a sense of security, and an appearance of happiness, which will in vain be sought for beyond the demarcation of the Company's territories. Even pirates and banditti have been effectually checked, and will no doubt in a few years be entirely extirpated.

In point of national character, the native Bengalese are artful, fraudulent, indolent, and thriftless. Flattering pictures have, indeed, been given of their morals by some writers who were evidently misled by partial and erroneous views, whilst the Protestant missionaries, on the other hand, have given a delineation exactly the reverse. To obtain information from a source, the purity of which cannot be controverted, we must have recourse to the records of the courts, and the reports of the magistracy; which furnish precisely the species of evidence that is required. From these we learn that robbery, even when accompanied by great atrocities, neither occasions remorse in the offenders, nor detestation in the public; that a general want of moral principle is notorious, in both Mahommedans and Hindoos, the lower classes of the former having adopted the idolatrous usages of the latter; that the bloody execrable worship of Cálí sanctifies the most atrocious barbarity; that perjury is scarcely considered a crime; and that the depraved character of the Hindoo mythology, combined with the Mahommedan doctrine of fatality, exerts a powerful and deleterious influence upon the sentiments and habits of the people. The abolition of mutilation and pecuniary commutation for murder, acquittal in default of proof of a malicious intention to assassinate, with other regulations established in our Indian tribunals, have in some measure diminished the mass of crime, and rectified the leading defects of the Mahommedan law; and at some future period may have the effect to purge out the old leaven, and produce a more extended reformation in the depraved manners of the people.

Considerable pains are now taken with the rising generation. The native children are early taught the elements of their language. About the age of five they are sent to the village schoolmaster, who assembles them under the shade of a spreading tree, and, on a plan similar to the one adopted in our National Schools, teaches them to read and write in six months. They are next occupied for a year in learning to write with a reed and ink on the leaves of the palmira (elate sylvestris), and acquiring the rudiments of arithmetic, together with a knowledge of the common tables of weights and measures. Writing on paper, and summing, commonly finish their education. The arithmetic necessary for agricultural and commercial pursuits is taught separately, and mensuration and book-keeping are learned practically in some shop or warehouse, where the youth is placed upon his leaving school. The Hindoos anciently wrote with iron styles, instead of reeds, upon the narrow leaves of the palmira. Their books consist of separate leaves, which are filed on iron pins, and guarded at the top and bottom

with a flat strip of wood. The whole is tied with a string, and wrapped up in a cloth. One rupee is paid for every 32,000 letters; so that the Mahab'bárat would cost sixty rupees (about £8); the Ramayan 24 (£ 3); and the Sri Bhagavat 18 (£2. 10s.). Divinity, astrology, and law, are almost the only sciences now studied, and learning has been long on the decline. The natives are, nevertheless, quick and inquisitive, and would probably be much improved by their intercourse with Europeans, but for that supreme contempt for other nations, generated by the notion of their being designated Hindoos.

The Bengalese, generally, are abstemious in their diet. In the morning, and at noon, the common repast amongst the upper classes is parched or parboiled rice, seasoned with sour milk, tamarinds, or molasses; amongst the poor, a little water with some salt, or acid fruit. Milk is always dressed in some way before it is used; butter is boiled, and by that means converted into g'hi, which keeps well, and may be used a year after it has been prepared. Their sweetmeats are fried in oil or butter, and the principal meal is made in the evening. Spirituous liquors are very seldom used for the purpose of intoxication, but preparations of hemp and opium are found very powerful substitutes.

The Mahommedans are computed at one tenth of the population, and abound mostly in the eastern districts. Of the four great Hindoo classes, the Brahmin, Khetri, and Vaisya, amount to a fifth part of the total population. Commerce and agriculture are universally permitted to all classes; and, under the general denomination of servants to the other three divisions, Sudras seem to be allowed to prosecute any manufacture. The Brahmins of this country are looked up to throughout the whole of Hindostan, and are said to have descended from five families introduced from Canój, or Cánya cubja, some centuries previous to the Mahommedan conquest. The first in rank are the Culinas. Of the Sudras, the Vaidyas, or medical tribe, rank first; next the Cayasthas, or Caïts, the writers and accountants; besides which there are nine other tribes of uncontaminated Sudras, from whom a Brahmin may condescend to receive a cup of water. It may be observed that none but Brahmins and Sudras are of genuine Bengalese origin, and in the latter tribe are included, not only the true Sudras, but also the several castes whose origin is ascribed to the promiscuous intercourse of the four classes. The purity of caste is maintained by a sort of clubs, or lodges, called dóls, which are again subdivided into smaller societies. In practice, however, little attention is paid to the limitation of caste; so that even Brahmins daily exercise the menial profession of Sudras. The occupation appropriated to each tribe is merely entitled to a preference, the gates of almost all professions being opened indiscriminately. Animal food, also, is by no means universally proscribed among the Hindoos; and the Agora Punt'h, a privileged order of mendicants, have even been suspected of anthropophagy.

A rigid observance of all the frivolous and laborious ceremonies prescribed by their religion is thought amongst the genuine Hindoos to be VOL. IV.

their truest glory; but truth and honesty are so little in request among them as never to be looked for, and scarcely to be desired. A man of integrity,' says a late publication, is a wonderfu! phenomenon; and one conscientious in his whole conduct may be safely pronounced to be an unknown character.' Their dead ought, strictly, to be burnt; but those who cannot afford to raise a funeral pile, stick a whisp of straw into the mouth of the corpse, and then throw it into the nearest river. To the rivers also they carry their expiring relatives when all hope is over, and leave them to die without assistance, or to be carried off by sharks and tigers. The self-immolation of widows has lately been so far checked by the police as to prevent the exercise of any compulsory means.

The hateful distinction of caste in Bengal annihilates every feeling of humanity towards the inferior classes, who, being considered as persons accursed by the gods, have no kindness to expect from those who are the favorites of heaven. Even common fowls are thought by the Hindoos impure. Ducks and pigeons are lawful, geese are kept as pets and rarely sold; but turkeys, with almost all other fowls, are to be met with only amongst the Mahommedans and Portuguese. Dogs and cats are merely tolerated; to kill a dog in order to relieve him from a lingering death would be a crime, and to feed him is no virtue. These animals wander about in a wretched halfstarved condition, and even children show no disposition to render them any kindness.

The mechanical arts among the Bengalese are not in a state of great perfection. Their music is harsh and unharmonious; their dancing lifeless and ungraceful. Hymns or love songs, in honor of Crishna the Indian Apollo, and his favorite Rád'ha, sung by the boatmen while rowing on the rivers, are almost the only airs that have any thing of melody. The different trades are professedly confined to different castes, and some of them held in great contempt. Tailor's work is almost the exclusive employment of Mussulmans. The barbers, who pare nails, pick ears, and shave heads, are a pure caste, and are therefore well paid. A woman who cuts her hair is thought to cominit a great breach of delicacy, and none but immodest ones ever smoke. The Bengalese artificers are not only clumsy, but indolent; and their metallic manufactures have none of that finish which distinguishes the blades of Damascus, and the filigree of Tunis. Paper was introduced by the Mahommedans, by whom it is usually made.

Amongst the most prominent manufactures of the Bengalese are to be enumerated plain muslins, distinguished by various names, according to the fineness and closeness of the texture; as well as striped, flowered, or chequered. Muslins, denominated from their patterns, are made chiefly in the province of Dacca, to which the manufacture of the thinnest sort of fine muslins is almost exclusively confined. Other kinds, more closely woven, are fabricated on the western side of the Delta of the Ganges; while a coarser sort, characterised by a more rigid texture, together with turbans, handkerchiefs, &c. of a similar quality, is not limited to any particular district. Inferior

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muslins both plain and flowered, are obtained from the northern parts of Benares. Calicoes, as they are manufactured in Bengal, include various kinds of cloth, to which no English names have been fixed, and which throughout the whole of Europe, are known chiefly by the Indian denomination cossaes (khasahs), are manufactured in that part of Bengal north of the Ganges, from Maulda to Berbazie, between the Mahanuddy and Tsamutty rivers. Similar articles are made near Taunda, in the dominions of the nabob of Oude. Baftas are made on the western frontier of Benares, in the neighbourhoods of Allahabad and Luckipore, the province of Bahar and other districts. Gurraes are the manufacture of Birbhoom; gezis and gezinas are woven in most districts, but chiefly in the Doab of the Ganges and Jumna, together with other kinds of cloth, the names of which are less familiar to the English reader. Sanaes are the chief fabric of Orissa and the district of Midnapoor, whilst some are imported from the territories immediately contiguous. On the northern frontier of Bengal Proper, sackcloth is manufactured from packthread, and serves as clothing to the mountaineers. Blankets are of universal manufacture, and canvass, made from cotton, is woven chiefly in the neighbourhood of Patna and Chittagong. In the centre of the Doab, a coarse cotton cloth, dyed red with cheap materials, are made for home consumption, whilst other sorts, dyed of various colors, especially blue, is prepared for inland commerce and for exportation. Both fine and coarse calicoes receive a topical dyeing, with permanent and fugitive colors, as well for common use as foreign commerce. Benares, the cities of Patna and Calcutta, with their immediate vicinities, are the principal seats of the manufacture of chintzes. The art, long since invented, appears to have been indigenous to India, and is brought to great perfection. Dimities of various kinds, and damask linen, are made at Tandah, Patna, Dacca, and other places. In the neighbourhood of Moorshedabad is the chief seat of the manufacture of wove silk and taffeta, both plain and flowered. Tissues, brocades, and ornamented gauzes, are manufactured at Benares, although plain gauzes are woven in the western and southern regions of Bengal. The manufacture of mixed goods, composed of silk and cotton, thrives mostly at Maulda and Boglipoor.

The rum distilled in Bengal proves little inferior to that of Jamaica, leather has been made there with considerable success; and the natives have also arrived at considerable perfection in the fabrication of saddles, harness, military accoutrements, boots, shoes, &c. and at Calcutta is manufactured an excellent species of canvass, which has, in some places, superseded the use of that imported from Europe.

The commerce of Bengal is extensive, consisting for the most part in piece goods, silk, saltpetre, opium and indigo. A considerable quantity of filature silk is exported to the western parts of India: a large proportion of it is sold at Mirzapoor, and passes thence to the Mahratta dominions, and the centrical parts of Hindostan. Tisser, or wild silk, is procured in abundance from the adjacent territories, where the worms are found in several species of trees

common in the forests of Assam, Silhet, and the Deccan. The color and lustre of this silk is far inferior to that of the domesticated insect, and the cones, although large, are but sparingly covered. Its cheapness, however, is a considerable recommendation: the aggregate production of it might be increased by encouragement; and large quantities, exported to Europe, might be used in the fabrication of coarse silks, or mixed with wool and cotton, might form, as it does now in India, a beautiful and acceptable manufacture. Various drugs used in dyeing are exported to England; as galls, turmeric, safflower, or carthamus, myrobalans, roots of morinda, which dye a beautiful color on cotton, and blossoms of the nyctanches, very useful for giving a permanent color to silks.

The number of articles brought from Bengal at present might easily be augmented; and should freight ever be reduced so low as it might be afforded, corn might be exported to Europe. Rice, barley, and wheat may be shipped in Calcutta for nearly the same price, viz. two rupees and a half per bag, containing two maunds, or from 3s. 4d. to 3s. 6d. per cwt. and rum might be exported at the low price of from 1s. 6d. to 1s. 9d. per gallon. Liquorice and ginger might be exported to any extent. Anotto (bixa orellana), coffee, cocoa, cochineal, and even tea, would succeed in this and the adjoining provinces, which comprehend every variety of tropical climate. Madder also grows wild on the neighbouring mountains. Gum Arabic, and many other species of gums and resins, both for manufacture and medicine, numerous varieties of drugs and vegetable oils, tincal, from the high table-land of Thibet, together with sal ammoniac, and alkalies both mineral and vegetable, might be procured in great quantities at a small expense, though seldom imported by British merchants.

Besides the above articles, which are to a certain extent restricted to Bengal and its immediate territories, India furnishes aloes, assafœtida, camphor, cassia lignea, cassia buds, benzoin, cardamums, cowries, arrangoes, cinnabar, chinaroot, nutmegs, cloves, cinnamon, mace, elephants' teeth, numerous gums, pepper, mother-of-pearl, quicksilver and rhubarb from China, senna, saffron, sago, scammony, anise, coriander and cumin seeds, hemp and flax, which, with all their varieties and substitutes, abound here to greater extent than in any other part of the world. The true hemp is little sed by the natives, except for the oil expressed from the seed, for medicine, and for an intoxicating ingredient often mixed with the tobacco of the hookah. The European goods sent out to India are too well understood to require enumeration. The trade between Bengal and the different coasts of the Indian ocean is very considerable. The exports to Madras on the coast of Coromandel are grain, sugar, pulse, saltpetre, molasses, ginger, clarified butter, long pepper, oil, wrought and unwrought silks, muslins, spirits, and provisions. The imports are chiefly salt, red wood, long cloth, izárìs (striped calicoes for trowsers), and chintzes, with a balance either in specie or government bills. To China, the next great mart for Calcutta commodities, besides the exports named above, are

sent opiuin, gunpowder, iron, fire-arms, &c. and tutenague, sugar-candy, tea, alum, dammer, porcelain, lacquered ware, and a vast variety of manufactured articles are imported in return. The trade to Bombay consists of the first-named articles, with the addition of sacking and hempen ropes: amongst the returns may be reckoned teaktimber (tectona), ivory, and lac. To the gulfs of Arabia and Persia, Bengal sends her staple commodities; to Ava and the Birman empire, in addition, fire-arms, stores, naval and military, with a great variety of European goods. From the eastern islands and the Malay coast, she imports pepper, wax, dammer, brimstone, tin,. gold-dust, spices, betel-nut, benzoin, specie, &c. From Manilla, besides specie, indigo of a very superior quality, sugar, sapan wood &c. From the Malabar coast, sandal wood, coïr rope, pepper, cardamums, cargoes of cotton, wool, &c From Pegu, teak timber, elephants' teeth, lac, and various other articles.

For inland commerce the province of Bengal possesses many important advantages, being watered by the Ganges from its western boundary to the sea, and intersected in every direction by navigable streams, which fall into that river. There is no division totally destitute of naviga tion during the rains, and scarcely any part, in the driest seasons, situated more than twenty miles from a navigable river. Rivulets, lakes, and water courses, communicating with great rivers, frequently conduct boats to the peasant's door. The vessels used in this inland navigation are various, adapted to the several streams they are intended to traverse. Flat clinker-built vessels are used in the rapid and shallow streams of the western districts; bulky and lofty-sided barks are commonly employed in the wide and stormy navigation of the lower Ganges. Low, deep, vessels are commonly used in the east, and are best adapted to a sea full of creeks and inlets. In one navigation, wherein vessels descend with the stream and return with the track rope, their construction recognises neither the sail nor the oar. In another, wherein boats in the same voyage are assisted by the stream of one creek, and opposed by the current of the next, as in the Sunderbunds, and under banks impracticable for the track rope, the oar is the principal dependence; a winding course in narrow passages affording few opportunities for the exhibition of the sail. Often grounding in the shallows, vessels would not be safe if constructed with a keel, for which reason, all vessels built in this province want this necessary appendage for quick sailing. The expense of building a Bengalese vessel is comparatively trifling. A circular board lashed to a bamboo forms the oar; a triangular frame sufficiently ballasted, serves for an anchor; a few bamboos bound together form the mast; a cane of the sa.ne species becomes a yard to the sail, which itself is generally a piece of coarse sacking, manufactured from the fibrous stem of the rushy crotularia, or hemp hibiscus; resin from the trees of the woods serve to pay the seams; and a thatch of straw, with mats, shelters the merchandise, and answers the purpose of a deck. Of these vessels, equipped and navigated with equal frugality, the number employed on the rivers of

Bengal and Bahar is so great as to furnish employment to no fewer than 300,000 men.

For land carriage there are not the same facili ties, the highways in general not being in a condition to admit of distant journeys in wheel carriages. Formerly the communication was better assisted; a magnificent road, carried from the banks of the Goggrah or Dewah, to the Brah mapootra, formed a safe conveyance through countries subject to inundation, for a distance of 400 miles. Of this road few remains are at present visible, and the beaten path in general directs the traveller. Liability to inundation, and want of good materials, must always impose great difficulty and expense in the construction of carriage roads, whilst the poverty of the agricultural population would not admit of the establishment of tolls. To expedite military movements, the Bengal government have completed an excellent road from Calcutta to Benares, which, so far as it goes, has greatly contributed to the general convenience.

Notwithstanding the superior advantages of water carriage, the cultivator derives little advantage from it; and is for the most part obliged to adopt the other mode. His crops are commonly disposed of as soon as they are reaped, on which occasion he commonly becomes a prey to opulent speculators, who, after they have made a monopoly, fix the prices, and compel the peasant on the return of sowing time to pay exorbitantly for his seed, and very often take mortgages

of his estates.

The trade carried on by the East India Company is regulated in the first instance by the Board of Trade, consisting of two members, and a nominal president, a member of the supreme council. Subordinate to this board are commercial agents, stationed in different places, and assisted by the civil powers and native officers.

Hats, or open markets, held on fixed days, in an open plain, and marked by a flag, were anciently the only places at which commercial transactions took place. Shop-keeping, which is still by no means universal, appears to have been introduced by the Mahommedans. Bazaars are an assemblage of shops, collected in one building or area, for the greater convenience of the inhabitants; and ganjs, or banders, are grain markets, or ports, in the canals and branches of rivers, inhabited by merchants or retail traders, under the protection of the nearest police officer.

The currency consists of cauries or cowries, and rupees; the former of which is used only for small change, gold being seldom seen out of Calcutta. The potdars, or money changers, have no shop, but sit in the open market with heaps of cowries piled up before them. In the morning they give cowries in exchange for silver, at the rate of 5,760 for a rupee; but in the evening will not receive them again at a lower rate than 5,920 for a rupee; thus, by a profit of 3 per cent. upon good mint money, imposing upon the ignorance and improvidence of the pople. A still greater harvest is reaped by these harpies, in consequence of the fluctuating exchange on clipped or debased coin.. Advances are also made to servants, who are paid in monthly wages, and

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