1848.] On the CMp&ng and Kusunda tribes of Nepal. 653 



as was available for me to glean from, a sufficient proof of the asserted 

 connexion and derivation of the Chepangs, notwithstanding all objec- 

 tions derivable from distance, dissolution of intercourse and physical 

 nonconformity. But observe, the last item of difference is, as already 

 intimated, not essential but contingent, for both Lhopa and Chepang 

 are marked with the same essential Mongolian stamp, whilst the dete- 

 riorations of vigour and of colour in the Chepangs, though striking, are 

 no more than natural, nay inevitable, consequences of the miserable 

 condition of dispersion and out-lawry to which the Chepangs have been 

 subject for ages anterior to all record or tradition. And again, with 

 regard to local disseveration, it should be well noted, in the first place ? 

 that by how much the Chepangs are and have long been removed from 

 Bhutan, by so much exactly do conformities of language demonstrate 

 identity of origin, because those conformities cannot be explained by 

 that necessary contact with neighbours to which the Chepang language 

 owes of course, such Hindi, Parbatia and Newar terms as the vocabu- 

 lary exhibits ; and, in the second place we must recollect that though 

 it be true that 300 miles of very inaccessible country divide the seat 

 of the Chepangs from Bhutan, and moreover that no intercourse there- 

 with has been held by the Chepangs for time out of mind, still in those 

 days when tribes and nations were, so to speak, in their transitional 

 state, it is well known that the tides of mankind. flowed and ebbed Math 

 a force and intensity comparable to nothing in recent times, and capable 

 of explaining far more extraordinary phcenomena than the disruption of 

 the Chepangs, and their being hurried away, like one of the erratic 

 boulders of geologists, far from the seat of the bulk of their race and 

 people. Indeed, the geological agents of dislocation in the days of 

 pristine physical commotion may throw some light, in the way of ana- 

 logy, upon the ethnological ones during the formative eras of society ; 

 and, though we have no record or tradition of a Lhopa conquest or in- 

 cursion extending westward so far as, or even towards, the great valley 

 of Nepal, we may reasonably presume that some special clan or sept of 

 the Bhiitanese was ejected by an ethnic cataclysm from the bosom of 

 that nation and driven westward under the ban of its own community 

 alike, and of those with which it came in contact in its miserable migra- 

 tion, for misfortune wins not fellowship. 



The lapse of a few generations will probably see the total extinction 

 of the Chepangs and Kusundas, and therefore I apprehend that the 



