Shikarpooree merchants.
Before our departure from Cabool, I made the acquaintance of many of the Hindoo or Shikarpooree merchants. The whole trade of Central Asia is in the hands of these people, who have houses of agency from Astracan and Meshid to Calcutta. They are a plodding race, who takeno share in any other matters than their own, and secure protection from the Government by lending it money. They have a peculiar cast of countenance, with a very high nose: they dress very dirtily. Few of them are permitted to wear turbans. They never bring their families from their country, which is Upper Sinde, and are constantly passing to and from it; which keeps up a national spirit among them. In Cabool, there are eight great houses of agency belonging to these people, who are quite separate from the other Hindoo inhabitants. Of them, there are about three hundred families. I met one of these Shikarpooree merchants on the Island of Kisham, in the Gulf of Persia; and were Hindoos tolerated in that country, I feel satisfied that they would spread all over Persia, and even Turkey.
Money arrangements.
With such an extensive agency distributed in the parts of Asia which we were now about to traverse, it was not, as may be supposed, a very difficult task to adjust our money matters, and arrange for our receiving a supply of that necessary article, even at the distance we should shortly find ourselves from India. Our expenses were small, and golden ducats were carefully sewed up in our belts and turbans, and sometimes even transferred to our slippers; though, as we had to leave them at the door of every house, I did not always approveof such stowage. I had a letter of credit in my possession for the sum of five thousand rupees, payable from the public treasuries of Lodiana or Delhi; and the Cabool merchants did not hesitate to accept it. They expressed their readiness either to discharge it on the spot with gold, or give bills on Russia at St. Macaire (Nijnei Novgorod), Astracan, or at Bokhara, which I had no reason to question: I took orders on the latter city. The merchants enjoined the strictest secrecy; and their anxiety was not surpassed by that of our own to appear poor; for the possession of so much gold would have ill tallied with the coarse and tattered garments which we now wore.Great proofs of the civilisation by commerce.But what a gratifying proof have we here of the high character of our nation, to find the bills of those who almost appeared as beggars cashed, without hesitation, in a foreign and far distant capital. Above all, how much is our wonder excited to find the ramifications of commerce extending uninterruptedly over such vast and remote regions, differing as they do from each other in language, religion, manners, and laws.