Institutions of the Inhabitants of Bout an. 499 



complexion and features, and the immoderate filthiness of their bodies and 

 dress. These, with the women of all denominations, whose condition is 

 equally menial and laborious, are the general drudges, and are seldom seen 

 without either a load at their backs, or working in the fields. There beino- 

 neither wheel-carriages nor cattle trained to transport loads in Boutan, the 

 whole business of carriage is performed on the backs of the human species. 

 I believe the women are in no part of the world treated worse than in 

 Boutan : they seem just tolerated for the indispensable purpose of propaga- 

 tion, and for the labour they can be brought to undergo. In the latter 

 every degree of age and condition is kept constantly engaged, from the 

 child who has just acquired strength to support itself, to the matron who 

 totters with age. The former are seen trudging with their little loaded 

 baskets, and the latter seldom get rid of theirs till death releases them from 

 the burthen. The superior class of the natives are bound by the most so- 

 lemn injunctions of religion to hold no intercourse with the women, but 

 on the contrary to shun them as objects of mortification and abhorrence ; 

 and those from whom they might expect a more tender regard, seem to 

 possess but very imperfectly those sentiments in which consists tlie enjoy- 

 ment of conjugal society, and to consider the women as meant by nature 

 to relieve them from the most toilsome offices of life, and to take the 

 largest share of their daily labours. The condition of the women in Thibet 

 is said to be even more humiliating : they are there in so little estimation 

 that the privilege of exclusive possession, which in most other parts of tlie 

 world is a privilege so tenaciously desired in marriage, is a matter of 

 such indifference, that " the same wife generally serves a whole family of 

 " males, without being the cause of any uncommon jealousy or disunion 

 " among them." This unworthy treatment of the women in both countries 

 has the effect of rendering them so indifferent to the improvement of their 

 personal charms, that they seldom wash either their clothes or skin. They 

 bear, in short, no comparison in external appearance with the men, who are 

 without exception the best formed, and, allowing for the complexion, the 

 handsomest race I ever saw. Unlike most other countries, Boutan exhibits 

 no difference of rank or circumstance among the women, tliey beino- here 

 all alike, the same dirty, labouring objects, and all of them equally in a 

 state of the most abject filthiness and slavery,* 



The Uajali's sister was at Tacissudon. She was lodged in a part of the building appro- 



