1839.] Copt. Pemberton's Mission to Bootan, 1837-38. 289 



hands. They danced to their own music, which consisted of a low 

 monotonous chanting, of a much more pleasing nature that the al- 

 tissimo screeching so admired in India. 



Of their manufacturing skill I saw few or no instances. All the 

 woollen cloths of ordinary quality are imported from Bengal or 

 Thibet ; their own manufacture being, it is said, confined to the pro- 

 duction of coarse, often striped, blankets, scarcely a foot wide. They 

 make but very little cotton cloth, and the manufacture of this appears 

 to be confined to the villages near the Plains ; the article is of poor 

 and coarse quality : all their silks and many other parts of their fine 

 apparel are Chinese. 



I have, before mentioned the use they make of bamboos, and rattans : 

 in the work of articles manufactured from these materials they are not 

 superior to the wildest of the Hill tribes to be found about Assam. 



Their ordinary drinking cups are wooden, and look as if they 

 were turned ; and they are perhaps the best specimens of manufacture 

 we witnessed. 



Their workers in metal are very inferior ; we saw some miserable 

 blacksmiths and silversmiths, provided with utterly inefficient appara- 

 tus ; however there is not much demand on their skill, as all their 

 arms, and all their better sort of utensils are of foreign manufacture, 

 principally Thibetan. They are said to manufacture the copper pans 

 used for cooking or dyeing, and which are frequently of very large 

 dimensions; and they went so far as to point out the place of manu- 

 facture, viz. Tassangsee. But I doubt this, for in the first place the 

 vessels resemble much those made in Thibet ; and in the second, I 

 saw nothing like any manufacture going on at Tassangsee, except that 

 of burning charcoal, which is much used in cooking. Paper they cer- 

 tainly do make, and in some quantity : I had no opportunity of seeing 

 the process. The material is furnished by two or three species of 

 Daphne. The article varies much in size, shape, and quantity ; the 

 finest being white, clean, and very thin ; the worst nearly as coarse as 

 brown paper. If bought from the manufacturers themselves it is cheap, 

 the price being six annas for twenty large sheets ; if from an agent the 

 price of course increases in a centesimal proportion. It is well adapted 

 for packing, as insects will not come near it, always excepting the 

 formidable white ant, who however consumes the contents of the 

 paper, not the article itself. This paper appears to be precisely the 

 same as that manufactured to the north-west and south-east by the 

 Shan Chinese. 



The only potteries, I saw were near Punukka, but although they 

 supplied the capital, there were only two or three families employed. 

 The clay is obtained close to the potteries,, and is of tolerable quality ; 



