506 Mr. S. Davis on the Religious and Social 



that described in the golden age. The natives are strangers to extortion, 

 cruelty, and bloodshed, in which several vices their Indian neighbours 

 have so eminently distinguished themselves ; there being no attainments by 

 which the most licentious can be allured to commit such crimes. We 

 had an instance of a rebellion, successful for some time before it was 

 suppressed, which cost but few lives, and only one of them that could be 

 called an execution, the zempln of Wandepore. Instead of the ferocity 

 and vengeance attendant on civil war, the Bouteas, upon several occasions 

 during the course of the insurrection and attempt against Tacissudon, 

 shewed a tenderness of each other's lives which, without scruple, I should 

 have attributed to their want of courage, had they not given proof of the 

 contrary in their war with us. They are upon the whole an exceeding poor, 

 but, comparatively speaking, a happy people, neither in danger of any very 

 outrageous oppression at home, nor of invasion and slavery from abroad. 

 The nature of their government, entrusted to a set of men who can never 

 have mischievous, sinister, and self-interested schemes of ambition or 

 avarice to prosecute at the expense of the public, exempts them from the 

 first ; and the strength of the country, in the uncommon difficulty of the 

 roads, secures them from the second. Food and clothes are found by all, 

 and what little superfluity beyond this the country affords, is so managed as 

 to make the most creditable figure in their different castles ; and as this is a 

 public concern, the public in this may be said to enjoy a share.* 



But, after all, these advantages and this happiness are of a negative 

 quality, and not such as would tempt the more enlightened part of mankind 

 to change conditions with the inhabitants of Boutan. They are for ever 

 excluded by the nature of the country from making any considerable pro- 

 gress in arts, manufactures, and commerce^ and therefore not likely to 

 acquire any very eminent degree of science, taste, and elegance. They might, 

 it is true, become better soldiers if they were more suitably armed, but such 

 an improvement might only induce them to disturb the peace and invade tlie 

 property of others, without contributing any needful security to their own. 



* Property acquired under the government of Boutan devolves to the Rajah on the proprietor's 

 decease, and becomes a part of the public stock. 



' Privatus illis census erat brevis — 

 Commune magnum,' — 



