its population, and that the labourers employed in the large and important tea industry of British Sikkim have been almost entirely supplied by Nepalese immigration, proves the importance to British India of our friendly relations with Nepal.
The Maharajah has done much to improve the native breeds of cattle and has imported from India and Europe bulls of various breeds with this object. He is also trying to improve the sheep with rams from my own flock. The native sheep are a large coarse-woolled breed, similar to those kept by the Nepalese on the frontiers of Sikkim, and commonly brought to Darjeeling for mutton, and arc able to endure the cold and wet climate of the higher ranges better probably than the improved breeds in England would do. It is not a country generally suited to sheep, though goats are numerous. In Nepal most of the cultivation is done as in Sikkim by hand labour, and irrigation is general wherever water can be brought. In the dry weather it was impossible to judge of the crops, but the rice and maize stubble did not indicate rich good soil as in Sikkim, and I believe that the area of land available for cultivation at healthy elevations is in most parts of the country too small to allow much increase in the population, who are poor and ill-paid as compared with those who emigrate in increasing numbers to Sikkim and the frontier districts of Assam.
The forests of Nepal do not seem to have received from the Government anything like the attention they deserve, as the growing scarcity of timber in Bengal must make them valuable in the future if they were properly protected, A partial survey has recently been made by a native officer lent by the Indian Forest Department, but I could not hear that anything had as yet been done to bring the forests under systematic management. Neither tea nor camphor, both of which would no doubt grow as well as they do in Sikkim, are grown, though I believe that camphor might become a valuable and profitable product.
Of the natural history of Nepal I can say little from personal observation, because we were not able to visit the mountains of the interior, where are found a great variety of birds and animals which have been described many years ago by Hodgson.
In the Maharajah’s palace, which is a large modern building in European style, I especially admired the very delicate carving which is done by native carvers in a wood known as Dar (Boehmeria regulosa). This is a very close-grained red wood easy to work, and found along the lower hills, but not usually attaining a large size. The immense quantity of fine wood carving with which the older houses of Khatmandu are adorned shows the talent of the Newars in this branch of art, but this seems to be a dying if not a dead industry, as there arc now no professional carvers, except those employed by the Maharajah, and no shops where such beautiful work can be procured. The same seems to be true of the metal workers in copper, brass and silver, who now work only to order, and I cannot help thinking that these arts might be encouraged by making an outlet for their work in British India, where there is now a good demand among tourists and residents for the fine metal work brought from Lhasa, much of which is similar in character to that of Nepal.
To most travellers the buildings, temples and ancient monuments of
