CHAPTER XV.
A dilemma at Bisoleah—Ignominious exit from the Nepaul dominions—The resources and capabilities of Nepaul—Articles of import from Thibet and Chinese Tartary—A vision of the future.
At Bhimphede we remounted our elephant, following, as before, the valley of the Rapti to Hetowra, thence through the great saul forest to Bisoleah, where we expected to find our palanquins. In this we were not disappointed; but unfortunately our bearers, tired of waiting for us at so uninteresting a spot, had thought themselves justified in absconding; which proceeding, while it was a considerable saving to us in a pecuniary point of view, was particularly annoying under existing circumstances, the day being far advanced and Segowly still thirty miles distant. However, by dint of a great deal of threatening, and coaxing, and bribing, and a very frequent use of the magic name of the Minister Sahib, who, we assured them, would take into his especial favour every coolie that volunteered for our service, and would visit with his heavy displeasure all those who refused, we induced a sufficient number of men to agree to bear our empty palanquins. Unloading two ponies, which were carrying cotton, we put our luggage on one, riding the other by turns, and so, one of us sitting on a rough sack without bridle or stirrups, the other walking by his side, we marched out of the village and across the open plain of the Terai. We were soon after left in darkness, and, becoming separated from our palanquins, as was to be expected, we lost our way, and wandered for some time disconsolately over the grassy plain, until at length, stumbling upon a village, we procured a guide and overtook the bearers a little beyond the Nepaul frontier. Ere we reached it, however, we were obliged to traverse numerous streams, which we crossed riding double on our pony. Altogether we made our exit from Nepaul in very different style from that in which we had entered it, and were not a little glad to arrive at Segowly shortly before dawn.
The journey from Katmandu to Segowly can scarcely be accomplished in less than three days and three nights, not on account of the distance, but of the frightfully bad roads, which quite preclude the possibility of travelling faster than at the rate of two miles an hour.
There is scarcely a country in the world in which the state of the roads is so much to be lamented, since, apart from the benefit which would accrue to Nepaul itself, we too should be gainers, by having not only the valuable productions of Nepaul brought to our markets, but also those of the more distant Thibet, which are always precious from their intrinsic value, and the cost of which is at present greatly increased by reason of the expensive journey across the Nepaulese hills in addition to the transit of the Himalayas.
The Terai is at present the only part of the Nepaul dominions which is profitable from the revenue yielded by its productions. Valuable timber and turpentine, ivory and hides, are shipped down the Boori Gundak, on which river Segowly is situated, to Calcutta; still the cost of a government licence for cutting timber is so heavy as in a great measure to deter speculators from engaging in an undertaking in which so considerable an outlay is demanded, exclusive of the expenses attendant on the felling and transport of the timber. Besides the saul the Terai contains ebony, mimosa, and other useful trees.
The trade in hides is not, as I have already remarked, carried out to the extent it is capable of. But in spite of all these drawbacks, the Terai alone, of all the Nepaul dominions, can be looked upon by the British as offering a profitable field for trade and commercial speculations.
Nevertheless, the interior of Nepaul contains productions far more valuable than those of the Terai. Its mineral resources are such as would in all probability, if properly developed, render their mountainous, and in some parts barren country, one of the richest in the world. Iron, lead, copper, and zinc mines abound, and are in fact worked, but, from all I could learn, so very badly, that, even did their roads allow of the export of the metals, it is to be questioned whether, without the application of a better system, enough metal could be obtained to do more than supply the home demand.
However that may be, there is no doubt of the existence of these mines, and, if ever there were tolerable roads, the necessary skill for working them would doubtless follow. So backward are the Nepaulese in their treatment of minerals, that they cannot smelt lead: the fact of their beating cannon-balls into shape proves their incapacity to cast iron, unless it results from a peculiarity of the ore, so frequent in India, which, instead of yielding cast-iron at once when reduced in the usual way, gives wootz—a condition of iron closely allied to steel, ductile but not fusible. Of this I had no opportunity of judging.
Nepaul also possesses mines of sulphur, and, it is said, of antimony; whether this latter is found in the country does not seem certain; it is, however, an article of import from Thibet. Amongst other minerals are corundum, figure-stone, and talc; and amongst the present exports from the interior of Nepaul may be noticed turmeric, wax, honey, resin, pepper, cardamums: all these, however, are exported in but small quantities, owing partly to the difficulty of transport, and partly to the want of enterprise and capital in a nation thoroughly ignorant of all mercantile transactions.
It is much to be regretted that no European is now allowed to settle in Nepaul; for its many latent resources must remain undiscovered, or at least undeveloped, until the present blind policy of its government is changed, when British enterprise and British capital introduces a new era in its commercial existence, which will doubtless prove no less profitable to the country itself than to the capitalist.
Of the immense expanse of country lying in a north-westerly direction towards Cashmere we know nothing, save by report, and that is not always to be trusted. The Minister told me that, in a province three days’ journey from the capital in that direction, sufficient horses were bred to supply the wants of the whole country. That seemed perfectly possible, considering how limited is the demand in this respect; but, on our homeward journey, we passed a drove of upwards of two hundred long-backed, spindle-legged colts, going up to Katmandu, and that did not seem exactly corroborative of the Minister’s assertion.
But, whatever may be its capabilities as regards horses, it doubtless possesses many resources; but it is not on the productions of Nepaul alone that the European speculator would calculate, but on the rare and precious merchandise of Thibet and the northern provinces of China—such as the miledo, or exquisitely soft material fabricated from the wool of the celebrated shawl-goat, itself a rare and valuable animal; and the chowries or tails of a peculiar species of bullock inhabiting the snowy regions, at present an article of export from the hill states in the north-west provinces of India, and extensively used throughout the continent as fly-flappers.
Musk, procured from the musk-deer, is a most valuable article of commerce, and the present trade is exceedingly lucrative; of very inconsiderable bulk, and of great intrinsic worth, it is one of the few things that can be imported into India with a profit. It there fetches enormous prices; a small musk necklace, which I saw in the possession of the Minister, and which certainly was not a foot long, was valued at 25 pounds. It is very seldom, however, that musk can be procured unadulterated. It is not, however, so much as an ornament, as a medicine, that we should use this now costly substance.
But the most valuable productions at present imported from Thibet are mineral. Immense quantities of salt are brought over the Himalayas on sheep’s backs; gold-dust, borax, sulphur, antimony, arsenic, orpiment, and medicinal drugs are also imported into Nepaul.
The animals which abound in these cold regions, and which might be worth importing, are musk-deer, sheep, shawl-goats, chowrie bullocks, falcons, pheasants—in fact, it would be hopeless to attempt to enumerate all those productions, animal, vegetable, and mineral, which are now scarcely known except by name, but which will doubtless some day be objects of traffic and commercial enterprise. For instance, there are various medicinal drugs and dyes (among which may be mentioned madder and spikenard) which are said to exist, but are now almost totally unknown.
Among the present articles of import are embroideries, taffetas, chintz, silk, cotton, cloth, carpets, cutlery, sandalwood, tobacco, conch-shells, soap, etc. Surely it is no very extravagant flight of imagination to suppose that the day may yet come when the unattainable and almost unknown productions of the trans-Himalayan regions will be transported across that mighty range, in well-appointed carriages, over macadamised mountain-passes; and the noble work of the scientific engineer will thus supersede the flocks of heavily-laden sheep, driven by uncivilized and ill-clothed Bootyas, who, “impelled by the force of circumstances over which they have no control,” will don their smockfrocks and turn draymen; when the traveller, going to the coach-office, Durbar-square, Katmandu, may book himself in the royal mail through to H’Lassa, where, after a short residence at the Grand Lama Hotel, strongly recommended in Murray’s ‘Handbook for the Himalayas,’ he may wrap himself in his fur bukkoo, and, taking his seat in a first-class carriage on the Asiatic Central Railway, whisk away to Pekin, having previously telegraphed home, viâ St. Petersburg, that he proposes returning through North America, and will, therefore, probably be detained a few hours longer than he had anticipated.
Such a state of things we may not live to see, but it is by no means unlikely that ere long a railway may run from Calcutta to the northern frontier of British India; so that, when Nepaul is thrown open to European enterprise, its costly productions will be easily and cheaply transported to the nearest port, while the now almost uncivilized Nepaulese would obtain European luxuries unknown to any of them except Jung Bahadoor and his travelled suite.
Nor will the idea of a direct communication between Nepaul and Pekin seem either so improbable or impossible when we consider that an embassy now makes the journey once every five years. It occupies no less than two years, including a residence of less than two months in the capital of the Celestial Empire. I met two or three Nepaulese who had accomplished the enterprise, and who spoke in glowing terms of Pekin, and of the magnificence displayed throughout those portions of the Chinese Empire which they traversed, as well as of the great city of Lassa, and the terrible mountains to be crossed and the incredible dangers to be overcome.
The mission is composed of twenty-seven persons, and would not be admitted across the frontier of China if it consisted of one more or less than the stated number. It must arrive on the frontier on a certain day, and is subject to various rules and regulations: at the same time every provision is made by the Chinese for the comfort of the members of the embassy while on their journey. The journey from Pekin to Lassa has lately been made by Messrs. Huc and Gabet, two French missionaries, and has been graphically described by them.
The Nepaulese look with the greatest awe upon their wealthy and highly-civilized neighbours; but the Minister, having now lived amongst people more warlike and accomplished than even the Chinese, regards them with great contempt; and I should not be surprised if, before long, accounts reach us of the invasion, by the Nepaulese, of the northern provinces of China, when the Minister would bring to bear his recently acquired knowledge, and would doubtless prove more than a match for the rudely-equipped forces of his Celestial Majesty.
The Tartar race, however, who would oppose the progress of a Nepaul army, are a very different set from their tea-drinking countrymen on the southern coast.
But to return from Chinese Tartars to the country we had just quitted. The kingdom of Nepaul extends for upwards of three hundred miles along the southern slopes of the Himalayas, and is said to contain a population of about five millions. Of these four hundred thousand inhabit the valley of Nepaul proper. The lands are divided into four classes of tenures—first, crown lands; secondly, Kroos or Soona Birtha, belonging to Brahmins or Newars; thirdly, Kohriya or Bari, barren lands granted for cultivation; and, lastly (and this is the most extensive class of the four), Kaith, in which the proprietor is at all charges of tillage, dividing the produce with the cultivator.
The silver coinage of Nepaul is somewhat similar to that in use throughout British India; in all the northern provinces of which, adjoining Nepaul, it passes current: the copper coinage is most extensive, and consists of shapeless lumps of copper, eighteen or twenty of which go to a halfpenny; they are used by the natives of India in preference to their own pice.
But it is time to take leave of this interesting country, with its snowy mountains and sunny valleys—its ignorant people and enlightened Minister—its bloodstained past and hopeful future. I had already mentally whispered my adieu, as, riding behind my companion on the rawboned pony, I crossed the boundary stream; and pleased and interested as we had been with our short stay in Nepaul, still we could not help regretting that it had not fallen to our lot to discover new wonders—to encamp on the shores of the great lake situated in the distant province of Malebum, the existence of which was vaguely hinted at by my friend Colonel Dhere Shum Shere—to explore unvisited mountains, and to luxuriate in the magnificent scenery which they must contain; the enjoyment heightened by the feeling that we were the first Europeans who had penetrated their inhospitable recesses.