But there is another description of men, of more importance than them all, a description you have often heard of, but which has not been sufficiently explained: I mean the _banian_.

When the Company's service was no more than mercantile, and the servants were generally unacquainted with the country, they used the intervention of certain factors among the natives, which were called _banians_: we called them so, because they were of the tribe or caste of the banians or merchants,--the Indians being generally distributed into trades according to their tribes.

The name still continues, when the functions of the banians are totally altered.

The banian is known by other appellations.

He is called _dewan_, or steward; and, indeed, this is a term with more propriety applied to him in several of his functions.