654 On the Chepdng and Kusunda tribes of Nepal. [Dec. 



traces now saved from oblivion of these singularly circumstanced and 

 characterised tribes, now for the first time named to Europeans, will be 

 deemed very precious by all real students of ethnology. Their origin, 

 condition and character are, in truth, ethnic facts of high value, as 

 proving how tribes may be dislocated and deteriorated during the great 

 transitional eras of society. 



Addendum on Bhutan. 

 Lho is the native name for Bhutan, and Lhopa and Dukpa (written 

 Brukpa) are native names for an inhabitant of Bhutan — whereof the 

 former is the territorial, the latter, the religious, designation. In other 

 words, a Lhopa is one belonging to the country of Bhutan, and a 

 Dukpa (recte Brukpa), a follower of that form of Lamaism which pre- 

 vails in Bhutan, and which has become equally distinctive with the local 

 designation for an inhabitant of the country, since the people of Bhot or 

 Tibet were converted to the new or Gelukpa form of that faith. Bhu- 

 tan is a Sanscrit w r ord, and is correctly Bhutant, or ' the end of Bhot* 

 (inclusively), the brahmans like the natives, deeming the Cisnavian re_ 

 gion an integral part of Tibet, which it is ethnographically, though by 

 no means geographically. Had Klaproth and Bitter been aware that 

 Lho is Bhutan, and Lhopa an inhabitant of Bhutan, we should not 

 have had their maps disfigured by a variety of imaginary regions placed 

 East of Bhutan and termed Lokabadja, &c. a sheer variorum series of 

 lingual error resting on the single local name Lho and its derivatives of 

 a personal kind, as correctly and incorrectly gathered by them. Origi- 

 nally some Bengali rendered Lho by the, to him, familiar word Lok (re- 

 gio) ; and then, being unaware that the Tibetan affix ba vel pa means 

 belonging to, inhabitant of, he subjoined to the ba his own equivalent of 

 ja (born of) and thus was deduced Klaproth' s furthest error (I omit 

 others short of this one) of Lokabadja. To trace an error to its source 

 is the best way to prevent its repetition, an aphorism I add, lest any per- 

 son should suppose me wanting in respect for the eminent persons whose 

 mistake I have pointed out. Klaproth was possibly misled by Hastings* 

 letters to and from Teshulungba.* But he and Bitter are fairly charge- 

 able with constant creation of new regions out of mere synonyma ! I 

 could give a dozen of instances from their splendid maps. 



* See Turner's Embassy and native account of Bhutan, in the Society's Transac- 

 tions. 



