1837.J 



The Valley of Nepaul 



449 



square mile. In Bengal it is estimated at 203 to the square mile,* 

 and in the cultivated portion of Orissa it did not exceed, when Mr. 

 Stirling's report was compiled, 135 to the square mile. The popu- 

 lation, whatever be its real amount, is almost entirely agricultural, as, 

 with the exception of the soldiery stationed at Oath mandu, amounting 

 to 6 or 7,000 men, and the chiefs and higher officers of Government 

 every inhabitant is more or leas directly engaged in the culture of the 

 soil. The artizans, religious orders, and persons employed in the 

 government offices do not, it is true, actually labour in the field, but 

 being almost universally the representatives of the Irish middlemen, 

 and Scottish tacksmen, they come corre ctly under the denomination 

 of Agriculturists. The poorer artizans, such as carpenters and brick- 

 layers, divide their time between the practice of their trades and the 

 culture of their little fields, while the better class of tradesmen, al" 

 though enabled to confine the work of their own hands to their crafts, 

 are invariably holders of land, sometimes cultivating it by means of 

 hired labourers, but most commonly by the system of subletting to the 

 Japoos, or the strictly speaking agricultural class of the Newars. 

 The arrangement usually made by these land holders is for the receipt 

 of one half the produce,. the actual cultivator retaining the other, as 

 his wages of his labour. 



Formation of the valley soil.— The soil of the valley, although con- 

 siderably diversified, is in the mass composed of alluvial deposite, 

 there being.no traces on the general surface either of the primary or 

 secondary rocky formations; indeed, throughout the entire ex- 

 tent of both levels, there is not a stone of any magnitude, and 

 scarce a pebble to be found. The only rocks accessible with- 

 in the valley, are those composing the diminutive ranges described 

 as spurs from the surrounding mountains, and trans-secting the basin. 

 These are of several kinds, some of them, as in the more easterly 

 portion of the range which tends from the west towards Sussanally 

 on the east, contain a considerable quantity of carbonate of lime, but 

 so intimately blended with a clayey slate stone, as not to admit of 

 being converted into quick lime by burning, although it will fre- 

 quently effervesce on the application of muriatic acid. 



* Mr. Bayley estimated the popula tion of Burdwan in 1 814 at 600 to the square mile, 

 but this district is incomparably the most populous one in Bengal, as Lancashire is of 

 England. In the county the population is estimated as high as 800 to the square mile, a 

 difference from that of Berkshire greater than between Burdwan and Bengal generally. 



