f^^Q LANGUAGES, &c. OF THE 



the diffusion of books, and which I should not venture to point out, had I 

 not had sufficient opportunities of satisfying myself of its truth among the 

 annual sojourners in Nepal, 



In the collections forwarded to the Society, will be found a vast number 

 of manuscripts, great and small fragments, and entire little treatises, all 

 which were obtained (as well as the small printed tracts) from the humblest 

 individuals. Their number and variety will, perhaps, be allowed to furnish 

 sufficient evidence of what I have said regarding BJwiii/a penmanship, if due 

 reference be had, when the estimate is made, to the scanty and entirely casual 

 source whence the writings were obtained in such plenty. 



The many different kinds of writing which the MSS. exhibit will, per- 

 haps, be admitted yet further to corroborate the general power of writing 

 possessed by almost all classes of the people. Or, at all events, their various 

 kinds and infinite degrees of penmanship, present a curious and ample spe- 

 cimen of Bhotii/a proficiency in writing, let this proficiency belong to what 

 dass or classes it may. 



Something of this familiar possession of the elements of education, which 

 I have just noticed as characterising Shot, may be found, I believe, also in 

 Indian 5 but more in the theory of its institutions than in the practise of its 

 society, because of the successive floods of open violence which have, for 

 ages, ravaged that, till lately, devoted land. The repose of Bhot, on the 

 other hand, has allowed its pacific institutions full room to produce their na- 

 tural effect J and hence we see a great part of the people of BJiot able to 

 write and read. 



In whatever I have said regarding the Press, the general power and habit 

 of writing, or the diffusion of books, in Bhotf 1 desire to be understood by 



