260 



BOOTAN. 



spersed with beautiful groves of pines. The level space, as well as 

 the more favourable sites on the slopes of the hills, are occupied 

 by wheat cultivation, which is carried on in a more workman-like 

 manner, than any of the previous cultivation I have hitherto seen. 

 The fields are occasionally surrounded with stone walls, but generally 

 only protected from the inroads of cattle by branches of thorny 

 shrubs strewed on their edges. They are kept clean, and above all, 

 manure is used : it is however dry and of a poor quality, apparently 

 formed of animal and vegetable moulds. In some of the fields the 

 surface is kept very fine, all stones and clods being carefully removed 

 and piled up in various parts of the field, but whether these masses 

 are again strewed over the ground. The plough is used, and pene- 

 trates to about four inches. Hoes and rakes are also used, but the 

 angle of the handle is much too acute. Radishes are grown with the^ 

 wheat : no rice is cultivated here. 



The village Bhoomlungtung, at which we are stationed is, on the 

 left bank of a branch of the Bhoomla nullah, a river of some size, but 

 fordable in most places, its bed being subdivided. It is 8,668 feet 

 above the sea. The houses are ordinary, but they are surrounded with 

 stone walls. Our's, which is a portion of the Dhumpas or headman's, 

 has a court-yard, surrounded by a stone wall, and the entrance is 

 defended by a stout and large door. The natives invariably wear dark 

 clothing, the colour being only rivalled by that of their skins, for I 

 never saw dirtier people. The Bhooteas hitherto visited, were quite 

 paragons of cleanliness compared to those we are now among. Half 

 ruined villages are visible here and there, although otherwise the ap- 

 pearance of the valley is prosperous enough. The valley is surrounded 

 on all sides by hills of great altitude, the lowest being 1 0,500 feet high. 

 Snow is plentiful on the ridges, but it does not remain long below» 

 although falls are frequent. No fish are to be seen in the river, 

 which is otherwise as regards appearance as beautiful a trout stream 

 as one could wish to have. The birds are the common sparrow, field- 

 fare, red-legged crow, magpie, skylark, a finch which flies about in 

 large flocks, with a sub-forked tail, raven, red-tailed stonechat, larger 

 tomtit, syras, long-tailed duck, and quail, which is much larger than 

 that found in Assam. The woods are composed entirely of Abies 

 pendula, a few A. spinulosa occur, intermixed, but the woods of the 

 latter species are scarcely found below 9,500 feet. The ridges are 

 clothed with the columnar Abies densa. In thickets a smaller Rosa, 

 Rhododendron ellipticum, foliis basi cordatis, Rhododendron elliptica, 



