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
