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KHATRIS.

and Khayets. Those who do not take service with Government or private individuals, become merchants and traders. A few perhaps embrace professions; but they are rare, and it appears to depend entirely upon what the father is or was, what the son shall be. 

Khatris and Kayets are a very numerous sect in Northern India. They extend from the Punjab to Bengal, and are certainly more numerous and in better circumstances in the latter than in the former. In the neighbourhood of Delhi, also, and from thence to Allahabad and Benares, they form considerable items of the population. In other parts of India they are comparatively rare, and are immigrants wherever found. Many of them accompanied the imperial Mahomedan armies on their expeditions into the Deccan, in the capacity of secretaries, paymasters, commissariat agents, and general scribes; nor was there any detachment, or troop, or company of imperial infantry or cavalry, without its Khayet scribe or keeper of its accounts. As the Mahomedans settled in the South of India, Khayets and Khatris accompanied them; but they rarely stayed permanently, and never married out of their own caste tribes. When the Deccan became the seat of the Mahomedan government of the South, and the family of the present Nizam was established as its Soubadar, many eminent families of Khatris accompanied them from Delhi, and became the financial staff of the new kingdom.  Of these most are still in existence. The late Maharajah Chundoo Loll, at first peschcar, or finance minister, rose to be prime minister of the now independent principality of the Nizam of Hyderabad, and as such held office for many years, with virtually uncontrolled power. In this office, and at the summit of his influence, a witty epigram was written and circulated at Hyderabad, comparing the Khatris to foxes, and deploring that the government of the famous Nizam ool Moolk had been eaten up by them - a result, which, for the time, was not perhaps without foundation. The Khatris at Hyderabad still possess their high hereditary offices of finance ministers, treasurers, auditors of accounts, and secretaries of state, superintendents and collectors of customs, with many others of great dignity and emolument, accompanied by titles according to their rank, and valuable hereditary estates. Of the poorer members of the sect, most are clerks in departments; and in these offices show the usual versatile talent of the class in acquiring Mahratta and Teloogoo, in addition to Persian, in which their original education consisted.

Khayets and Khatris are worshippers of Bhowani or Devi, and of Siva her husband; but the adoration paid to the former is greater than to the latter. They are also believed to profess and follow the obscure and impure rites of Shakti worship, in a greater degree than other sects. They eat all animal food except beef, and are remarkable among Hindoos for their excellent cookery and sweetmeats. Spirituous liquors are not forbidden, and many indulge in them to excess habitually, as well as in smoking intoxicating compounds. Intellectually