SIKHIM AND BHUTAN
have developed in Bhutan into a magnificent race of men physically. Why there should be this marked contrast I cannot say, it may be due to the difference in climate, but there is no comparison between the two, although the Sikhim Bhutea is a strong sturdy fellow in his own way. The Bhutanese are fine, tall, well-developed men with an open, honest cast of face, and the women are comely, clean and well-dressed, and excellent housekeepers and managers. Their religion is Buddhism and their language a dialect of Tibetan.
Of their morals. Dr. Griffiths, who accompanied Pemberton in 1838, writes as follows:
“Of the moral qualities of the Booteahs it is not in my power to give a pleasing account. To the lower orders I am disposed to give credit for much cheerfulness, even under their most depressed circumstances, and generally for considerable honesty. The only instances of theft that occurred did so on our approach to the capital. How strange that where all that should be good, and all that is great is encouraged, there is little to be found but sheer vice; and how strange that where good examples alone should be led, bad examples alone are followed.
“To the higher orders I cannot attribute the possession of a single good quality. They are utter strangers to truth; they are greedy beggars, they are wholly familiar with rapacity and craftiness and the will of working evil. This censure applies only to those with whom we had personal intercourse; it would be perhaps unfair to include the Soubahs, whom we saw only once in such a flattering picture, but it certainly would not be unreasonable, and I must make one exception in favour of Bullumboo, the Soubah of Dewangiri, and he was the only man of any rank that we had reason to be friendly towards and to respect. In morale they appeared to me to be inferior to all ordinary hill tribes, on whom a Booteah would look with ineffable contempt, and although their houses are generally better, and although they actually have castles
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