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.
CHAPTER XVI.
Journey to Lucknow—Nocturnal disasters—View of the Himalayas—Wild-beast fights—Banquet given by the King of Oudh—Grand display of fireworks—Our return to cantonments.
Unquestionably the pleasures of travelling cannot be said to be altogether unalloyed—a consideration which the journey from Segowly to Lucknow irresistibly forced upon our minds, how determined soever we might be to adhere to the traveller’s first principle of making the best of everything. We left the station about dusk, upon a night in which the elements seemed to have combined to cause us as much discomfort as possible, and the violence of the storm about midnight compelled us to take shelter in every tope of trees we came to, or, as it appeared to me, wherever the bearers thought we stood a good chance of being struck by the lightning which was vividly flashing in most unpleasant proximity. The deluge of rain soon made the path so slippery that our progress was much retarded, which would not have signified had it not happened that every now and then my slumbers were most disagreeably disturbed by a crash which flattened my nose against the side of the palanquin, or produced a violent shock to every part of my body, the effect of a slip of some unhappy bearer who was himself on the broad of his back, and had brought down the palanquin, bearers and all, in his tumble.
This occurred to me no less than five times in one night, and the consequence was that my palanquin was in even a worse condition than my body; it did not possess a single uncracked panel, nor were there any means of keeping the doors in, far less closed, and the cooling influence of the rain which pelted upon me was only counteracted by the feverish anxiety I experienced from the momentary expectation of feeling the bottom give way, which would have inevitably landed me in the mud in a most deplorable condition—as had been the case with every book or other loose article about me.
Daylight, however, revealed a prospect which banished at once the remembrance of our nocturnal annoyances. The whole of the Himalayan range, tinged by the glowing rays of the rising sun, displayed to our delighted and astonished gaze its long and majestic line of snowy peaks, while the atmosphere, cleared by the night’s heavy rain, brought out in bold relief the sharp outline of every point and angle from the clear horizon-line of the various summits down to where the light morning haze still shrouded their base.