Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 6.djvu/264

 GRAIN DEALERS.

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HE dealers in grain are not an exclusive class in Sind, but belong to the extensive family of the Lohanas, before described. There is nothing, therefore, specially to be recorded of the figures in the Photograph. Besides entire grain they sell flour, ghee or clarified butter, pulse of all kinds, spices, salt, and other condiments for cookery. The dealer is, in fact, the Indian Bunnea, commonly seen in every bazar, sitting behind his baskets of grain and flour, and weighing out his goods with the same kind of scales, which have a wooden beam without a central hinge, and which, by skilful manipulation, can be made to represent a much smaller quantity than is paid for by the unwary purchaser. Many of these small purveyors make a comfortable maintenance, and some even rise to be wealthy men, and wholesale dealers in grain or general merchandise.