Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4 WASHINGTON 



October, 1920 



NEPAL: A LITTLE-KNOWN KINGDOM 



By John Claude White 



Author of "Lhasa, the World's Strangest Capital," "Castles in the Air," and "Unknown Bhutan" 



With Photographs by the Author 



K 



MONG the Himalayan Mountains, 

 of which it owns a fair portion, 

 including Mount Everest, the 

 highest mountain in the world, is the 

 Kingdom of Nepal. Often heard of, it 

 is one of the native Asian States of which 

 least is known. 



With the exception of the British Resi- 

 dent and a few European officials who 

 live in the Residency grounds at Khat- 

 mandu, the capital, no one is allowed to 

 visit the country without a special per- 

 mit issued by the Durbar. When the 

 pass or permit has been obtained, visitors 

 are obliged to travel by one particular 

 route and are not allowed to go beyond 

 the Valley of Khatmandu, a tract of 

 country about 15 miles wide by 20 miles 

 long, surrounded by high mountains. 



The road into Nepal for its entire 

 length is purposely kept in a bad state of 

 repair by the Durbar and runs over quite 

 unnecessarily difficult country, the idea 

 being that the worse the road the more 

 difficult it would be for attacking troops 

 to enter the country. On one occasion, 

 when coming up from the plains, I re- 

 turned to Khatmandu by a fairly good 

 road, turning off near Chitlong and en- 

 tering the valley close to Patan. The 

 Gurkha "escort," which always accom- 

 panies Europeans on any journey in 

 Nepal, had temporarily left me, and, see- 

 ing the road, I rode in quite easily before 

 the escort discovered I had left Chitlong. 



So I found that there was this much 



good road, at any rate,, and I believe there 

 is a good road all the way to the plains 

 of India down the valley of the Bagh- 

 mutti, but no Europeans are allowed to 

 travel on it. 



A TURBULENT, ACTIVE, PROLIFIC PEOPLE 



The Nepalese are a prolific people of 

 very great energy and activity, eager to 

 make the most of any opportunity which 

 offers itself. The population is increas- 

 ing so fast that outlets have to be found, 

 and the trend of emigration now is to 

 follow the foothills along Bhutan and 

 into Assam. 



They make good settlers, though some- 

 what turbulent, bring their manners and 

 customs and religion with them, and do 

 not intermarry with the people of the 

 countries in which they settle. They re- 

 quire a very firm hand to keep them in 

 order in the lands of their adoption. It 

 is quite within the bounds of possibility 

 that, in the near future, from sheer force 

 of numbers, they will become the domi- 

 nating race in Bhutan, the Bhutanese be- 

 ing few in number and a race which ap- 

 parently is on the wane. 



The Nepalese are a fighting people, 

 have an excellent army and organization, 

 and are fond of show, both in military 

 display and in their religious festivals. 

 The latter are very numerous and in fact 

 seem to be interminable. The women 

 take a prominent part in most of them. 



