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MARWARREES.

other staple articles of trade, whatever they may be, and with Government stocks and general securities: there are no speculators so bold, perhaps none so reckless, as the Marwarrees.

It is little to say there is a Marwarree Bunnea in every village of the Deccan, and of Berar, Khandeish, and Malwah. There may be two or three. Men who have nothing but a drinking vessel in their hands, possibly hardly more than a change of garments, and who may be begging their way from caste fellow to caste fellow from their own country, follow one another year after year, and settle somewhere. At first they may be menial servants or shopmen, travelling among villages to collect produce, and to make time bargains, or may serve in any other humble capacity; but as soon as they can secure a few rupees, as much as will stock a Bunnea's shop for a day, they begin life on their own account, and so persevere. It would be difficult to say what the Marwarree does not deal in - any thing by which he can make money. Scores of articles of produce, which were before neglected or almost unknown, the Marwarrees have turned into staples of commerce, not only to their own benefit, but to the benefit of thousands of the people. They put aside the hereditary local Bunneas of the country by bold dealing. The old steady Mahratta of the Deccan, or Komptee of Telingana, had few ideas beyond his occupation as a huckster. He went round and round in his daily mill, as his father did before him. Directly the Marwarree settled near him, he began to feel he was undersold, over-reached in business, and hustled aside; that the people, even his own constituents, preferred to deal with the sharp, shrewd foreigner, instead of in the dull plodding round of former traffic; and, in the end, the Marwarree had the best of the struggle, and held his own place triumphant. The Deccan and Berar people, the simple Mahratta farmers, at first thought the Marwarree a great change for the better; but, in the end, they grew to be mistaken. If the old Bunnea was, after his fashion, extortionate, the Marwarree had no scruples at all. If the Bunnea's compound interest was a sharp touch, the Marwarree's was illimitable. If the Marwarree could have calculated it day by day, he would have done so; was it not in his bond? If he calculated interest upon interest every month or fortnight, could any one object? When he calculated it correctly, it was bad enough; but when the amount was put down almost at hap-hazard, it became frightful. The whole country was, as it were, eaten up by these extortioners; and a serious movement, which took place against them throughout the whole of the Bombay Presidency, not many years ago, might, nay would, have ended in local insurrection, like the Sontal war, if means had not been taken in time to check the spoliation which was going on.

Marwarrees now know exactly how far they can go without violation of the law, and they exact the uttermost farthing. They are the hardest creditors the people ever had, or ever will have. Woe to any unhappy farmer, who borrows to