1839.] Capt. Pemberton's Mission to Bootan, 1837-38. 263 



coolest situations. Of their grades of rank I can say nothing, but 

 much importance seems to depend upon due agedness. The highest 

 were usually admitted to the interviews, and of course expected to be 

 recompensed for the honour they did us ; but as they were well con- 

 tented with two or three rupees, their ideas cannot be said to be 

 extravagant. They are perhaps rather more cleanly than other 

 Booteas, and are reported to bathe publicly every week ; but although 

 we frequently saw processions in single files, in all cases headed by a 

 small drum, a sort of gong, a clarionet, and an incense bearer, the 

 priests following according to their seniority, the youngest noviciate 

 ending the tail, I am not convinced but that the bathing part may be 

 more nominal than actual ; one thing at least is certain, that the duty, 

 whatever it was, was agreeable, otherwise we should not have seen the 

 processions so often. 



They are kept in order in the castles by hide whips, in the use 

 of which some of the brethren are neither sparing nor discriminating. 

 The dress is becoming, consisting of a sleeveless tunic, generally of a cho- 

 colate colour, and edged with black or yellow. They are certainly bet- 

 ter off than any other class : their chief duty is to be idle, to feast at 

 the expense of the country, and at most, to tell their beads and recite 

 mutterings. 



The idle retainers form also a large portion, though by no means 

 equal to that of the priests. As little can be said in the favour of these 

 as in that of those, but they have one disadvantage in not being able to 

 make use of their religion as a cloak for evil deeds. In these two classes 

 all the most able-bodied men in the country are absorbed: they are 

 taught to be idle and to become oppressors, and what is very bad in 

 such a thinly populated country, they learn to look upon the ordinance 

 of marriage, and its usual consequences, as a bar to their own interest. 

 Of the great men I can only say that their influence is undeviatingly 

 directed to the furtherance of their interests ; they become governors to 

 oppress, not to protect the governed — they rule by misrule; and as 

 being the sources of the two great evils I have just mentioned — priests 

 and retainers — they are themselves the greatest curse that ever was 

 inflicted upon a poor country. 



Of the moral qualities of the Booteas 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 congregated, 

 there is little to be found but sheer vice ; and how strange, that 



