TIBET. 
34 9 
numerous, party of husbands, as the despot of an Indian zennana, is of 
the favours of his imprisoned fair. Under circumstances so unfavour¬ 
able, it is no wonder that the business of increasing the species, is but 
coldly carried on. 
Officers of state, as well as those who aspire to such distinctions, 
deem it, indeed, a business ill suited with their dignity, or duties, to 
attend to the propagation of their species; and retire from this essen¬ 
tial care, abandoning it entirely to mere plebeians. Marriage, in fact, 
amongst them, seems to be considered rather as an odium, a heav 
r<? 
burden, the weight and obloquy of which, a whole family are disposed 
to lessen, by sharing it among them. 
The number of husbands is not, as far as I could learn, defined or 
restricted within any limits; it sometimes happens, that, in a small 
family, there is but one male; and the number may seldom perhaps 
exceed that, which a native of rank, during my residence at Teshoo 
Loomboo, pointed out to me in a family resident in the neighbourhood, 
in which five brothers were then living together very happily, with 
one female, under the same connubial compact. Nor is this sort of 
league confined to the lower ranks of people alone; it is found also 
frequently in the most opulent families. 
However this custom, which as a traveller I am obliged to notice, 
may intrinsically deserve reprobation, yet it must at the same time 
be allowed, that local laws very frequently result from local causes; 
and that, in consequence of the peculiar prejudices and opinions of 
one people, the same practice may be viewed in one country in the 
blackest light, which another people may not only see fit occasion 
