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BHUTAN.

412

southerly direction, which, forcing their passage through narrow defiles,

and precipitated

pour themmentioned by Turner as nearly dissipated in mid-air, and

in cataracts over the precipices, eventually

One

selves into the Brahmaputra.

falling over so great a height, that

torrent

it is

looks from below like a jet of steam. the most considerable

Of

is

the rivers traversing Bhutdn,

Mands, flowing in its progress to the Brahmaputra under the walls of Tasgaon, below which it is unfordable. At the foot of Tasgaon Hill it is crossed by a suspension bridge. The other principal rivers are the Machu, Tchinchu, Torsha Malichu, Kiiruchu, DharM, Raidak, and Sankosh.

— Previous

People.

is

the

the

to

British

annexation

Dwars, the

of the

about 20,000 square miles. The population of the country now remaining to Bhutan was estimated in area of the

1864

at

kingdom was reckoned

20,000 souls.

The

figure.

at

Later information, however, points to a larger

population consists of three classes

chiefs or Penlows, including the governing class

The



— the

priests;

and the

the

cultivators.

people are industrious, and devote themselves to agriculture,

but from

the

geological

structure

of the

insecurity of property, regular husbandry

is

country,

and from the

limited to comparatively

Nothing that a few spots. The people are oppressed and poor. Bhutia possesses is his own,’ wrote the British. Envoy in 1864; he is at all times liable to lose it if it attracts the cupidity of any one more ‘

‘

powerful than himself. servants, are

little

The

lower classes, whether villagers or public

In regard

better than the slaves of higher officials.

and they have at once to surrender anything that is demanded of them. There never was, I fancy, a country in which the doctrine of “ might is right ” formed more completely the whole and sole law and custom of the land, than it does to them,

in

no

Bhutan.

rights of property are observed,

No

official

receives a salary; he has certain Districts

over to him, and he

may get what he can

of his gains he

compelled to send to the

extorts

is

and the more he sends

out of them

made

a certain portion Darbir; the more he

to his superior, the longer his tenure of

office is likely to be.’

Captain Pemberton thus describes their moral condition



‘

I

some-

saw a few persons in whom the demoralizing influences of such a state of society had yet left a trace of the image in which they were originally created, and where the feelings of nature still exercised their accustomed influence, but the exceptions were rare and although I have travelled and resided amongst various savage times

on our frontiers, I have never yet known a people so wholly degraded as the Bhutids.’ Their energies are paralyzed by the nature of their institutions and the insecurity of property, their morals are extremely low, and their numbers reduced by the unnatural system of polyandry and the excessive prevalence of monastic institutions. tribes