or the Panicum Italicum, with Tangni or Kakun, which is the Panicum colonum, and with Kaungni, which is the Holcus Sorghum. When the soil is in heart, these produce very good crops, and once in the three or four years the field is allowed a season’s fallow. This seems to be the kind of land which Colonel Kirkpatrick calls Kohrya. [231a]
In Nepal, the Gangja, Charas, or Cannabis sativa, as I have already mentioned, is a common weed: but in that country it is not cultivated, although much used for the purpose of intoxication. The dried leaves are brought from the Tariyani, but are reckoned heating, and are not so much used as the extract, which is called Charas: of this Thibet produces the best. The proper manner of preparing Charas is by making incisions into the stem, and collecting the juice, in the same manner as opium is produced from the capsules of the poppy. A coarser kind is prepared from the expressed juice of the hemp.
Colonel Kirkpatrick [231b] gives a different account of the manner of preparing this drug, which, he says, is procured by rubbing the leaves of the plant Jeea, until the resin adheres to the fingers, from which it is scraped off with a spathula. The plant called Jeea is no doubt the Cannabis sativa, nor can much reliance be placed on the information which the Colonel received on this subject: as the person who gave it has evidently been inaccurate, when he stated concerning the Gangja and Subje produced from the same plant, that the former is prepared from the flowers and the latter from the leaves; while, in fact, the one is the dried plant, and the other the expressed juice.
The dose of Charas is from ten to twelve grains made up into a pill, which is smoked like tobacco. The dried leaves, or Gangja, are taken in the same manner, and both produce
violent intoxication. While we were in Nepal, a shopkeeper, who attended the camp, smoked so much Charas that he died. From the accounts given me by those who saw him, he became stupid, but not irrational, and complained of nothing except thirst, for which he two or three times drank water. As it was not looked upon as any thing extraordinary, I did not hear of the circumstance till some hours after the man’s death. He did not intend to kill himself; but, in the course of his indulgence, repeated the dose too often.
Two kinds of coarse cotton cloth, called Khadi and Changa, are woven by the Newar women of all ranks, and by the men of the Parbatiya cast, called Magar. The cotton grows in the hilly parts of the kingdom, and is sufficient for the consumption; but none is exported from Nepal Proper. These cloths constitute the dress of the middling and lower classes of people, although woollen would be better fitted for the cold of a Nepal winter. All those, however, that are not very poor, can afford to have woollen blankets, which are manufactured by the Bhotiyas, who even in summer wear no linen. The whole dress of the higher ranks in Nepal is imported, and consists chiefly of Chinese silks, shawls, and of the low country muslins and calicoes. The military alone wear European broad cloth.
In Lalita Patan and Bhatgang there is a very considerable manufacture of copper, brass, and Phul, which is a kind of bell-metal. The bells of Thibet are superior to those of Nepal: but a great many vessels of Phul are made by the Newars, and exported to Thibet, along with those of brass and copper. Iron vessels and lamps are also manufactured for the same market.
A very strong paper, remarkably well fitted for packages, is made at Bhatgang, from the bark of a shrub, which I call the Daphne papyrifera. The supply, however, is not adequate to
the demand, and not only the paper, but a considerable quantity of the raw material is imported from Bhot. The bark is exceedingly strong and pliable, and seems to be the same with certain tape-like bandages, employed by the Chinese in tying many of their parcels.
At Kathmandu the common daily hire for a labouring man is two anas. Merchants pay three Mohurs for every porter who brings a load from Hethaura, and five Mohurs from Gar Pasara. The porter takes three days to come from the former, and five days from the latter; but he must return empty; the hire is therefore four anas a day. The usual load is twenty Dharnis, or a hundred pounds; but some strong men carry a half more. They carry their loads in a basket called Doka, of which a representation is given in the plate opposite to page 39 of Kirkpatrick’s Nepaul. Persons of rank, who do not choose to walk or ride on horseback, usually travel in what is called a Dandi, which is a hammock suspended on a pole, and carried by from four to six men, as represented in the plate opposite to page 39 of Kirkpatrick’s Nepaul. When a woman goes in a Dandi, a cloth thrown over the pole conceals her from view. This conveyance is well fitted for a mountainous country, where few of the roads will admit of the use of a horse. For a Dandi, to convey them from Kathmandu to Gar Pasara, merchants pay twenty-four Mohurs: carpenters and blacksmiths receive three anas a day: bricklayers two anas and a half: goldsmiths, for every two Mohurs weight of gold they work up, are allowed four anas: for working silver, they receive one-sixteenth part of the metal. According to the fineness of the work, the labourers obtain from one to two Mohurs for every Darni of copper which they manufacture.