The races along our North-East Border—Tibet—The Mahatmas—Nepal—Bhutan—Its geography—Its founder—Its Government—Religious rule—Analogy between Bhutan and old Japan—Penlops and Daimios—The Tongsa Penlop—Reincarnation of the Shaptung Rimpoche—China's claim to Bhutan—Capture of the Maharajah of Cooch Behar—Bogle's mission—Raids and outrages—The Bhutan War of 1864-5—The Duars—The annual subsidy—Bhutan to-day—Religion—An impoverished land—Bridges—Soldiers in Bhutan—The feudal system—Administration of justice—Tyranny of officials—The Bhuttias—Ugly women—Our neighbours in Buxa—A Bhuttia festival—Archery—A banquet—A dance—A Scotch half-caste—Chunabatti—Nature of the borderland—Disappearing rivers—The Terai—Tea gardens—A planter's life—The club—Wild beasts in the path—The Indian planters—Misplaced sympathy—The tea industry—Profits and losses—Planters' salaries—Their daily life—Bhuttia raids on tea gardens—Fearless planters—An unequal fight. Along the North-East Frontier of India lie numerous States and races of which the average Britisher is very ignorant. Of late years Tibet has bulked largely in the public eye owing to international and diplomatic intrigues and our little war with it in 1904. But, previously, it was probably best known to the Man in the Street as the country from which according to the Theosophists, "the Mahatmas come from." They must all have deserted it long since; for I never met anyone who had been in Nepal is best known as the country which supplies us with the popular little Gurkha soldiers. But Bhutan, which lies along our Indian border, is scarcely known even by name to the crowd. Yet, as long ago as in the days of Warren Hastings, we had diplomatic intercourse with it; and half a century has not elapsed since we were at war with the Bhutanese. Yet, to-day, there are not a dozen Englishmen who have crossed its borders. Bhutan is an exceedingly mountainous country, twenty thousand square miles in extent, lying along the northern boundary of Bengal and Assam, hemmed in on the west by Sikkim, a State under our suzerainty, and on the west and north by Tibet. A Buddhist land, its system of government is very similar to that of Japan before the Meiji, the revolution of 1868. It was founded by a lama who, after establishing himself as supreme ruler, handed over the control of temporal matters to a layman and a council of elders. Until the other day the country was nominally governed by a spiritual head, the Shaptung Rimpoche, an incarnation of the deified founder, known in India as the Durma Raja, and a mundane monarch whom we term the Deb Raja. They were assisted by a council. The analogy between them and the Mikados and Shoguns of In former times China held a shadowy claim to the suzerainty of Bhutan; and when, after our war with Tibet, we re-established her influence over that country, the Chinese endeavoured to reassert their hold over Bhutan as well. The Tongsa Penlop The first occasion on which the Indian Government was brought into contact with Bhutan was in the time of Warren Hastings. In those days the Bhutanese claimed sovereignty over the forest-clad plains in the north of Eastern Bengal. In 1772 they carried off the Maharajah of Cooch Behar as a prisoner. A small British force pursued them into the hills and made them surrender their captive. Hastings seized the opportunity of their suing for peace to send an Envoy, Bogle, to endeavour to establish trading relations with Bhutan. Bogle entered the country by way of Buxa Duar and was at first well received by the Deb Raja. He gave a flattering account of the people and their customs in his journal; and his description of Bhutan might almost have been written yesterday, so little changed is it. His mission bore little fruit; and the jealousy of strangers, inherent in all Buddhist nations, soon put a stop to any intercourse with India. A long series of raids into our territory and outrages on our subjects along the border was borne with exemplary patience for many years by the East India Company. But at length the ill-treatment of another Envoy, Eden, sent to remonstrate with the Bhutanese, led to our declaring war on them in 1864. Taken by Bhutan to-day stands much where it has for centuries past. Its religion is a debased lamaism and idolatry, which replace the high moral teaching of Buddha. Its impoverished peasants and even the lay officials are heavily taxed to support in idleness the innumerable shoals of Buddhist monks and nuns. Praying wheels and prayer flags and the support of lamas are, as in Tibet, all that is necessary to ensure salvation. Arts and handicrafts are decaying. Trade is principally carried on by the primitive method of barter. Owing to the mountainous nature of the country cultivation is much restricted. The only coins I could find struck in Bhutan were a silver piece worth sixpence, and a copper one worth the sixteenth of a penny. British, Tibetan and Chinese coins are used. Most of our annual subsidy finds its way back into India in exchange for cloth and food-stuffs. When paid by us a large portion of it used to go to the ecclesiastical dignitaries in the capital, Punakha, and the rest was distributed among the various Penlops. The Deb Zimpun, the official sent into our territory every year to receive it, now hands it over to the Maharajah, who disburses it. The roads through Bhutan are mere ill-kept mule tracks. The forests, which are in strong contrast to the usually treeless plateaux of Northern Tibet, though not found at the greatest elevation in the country, are well looked after; and the regulations for their preservation are strictly enforced. A long series of internecine wars has ruined the land; but of late years the predominance of the Tongsa Penlop has ensured internal peace. The only buildings of note are the temples, the gumpas or large monasteries There is no regular army in Bhutan, each Penlop and important official maintaining his own armed retinue; but every man in the country is liable for service. Their weapons are chiefly single-edged straight swords and bows and arrows. The swords are practically long knives and are universally carried as cutting tools, for use in the forests. There are very few modern fire-arms in the country. The Deb Zimpun, in his visit to Buxa to receive the subsidy, was accompanied by his guard of sixty men without a gun among them. He told me that he possessed a fowling-piece himself which he had left behind, as he had no cartridges for it. Although Bhutan now possesses a Maharajah, the government is still carried on on feudal lines. The Penlops rule their own territories without much outside interference. Under them are the jongpens or commanders of jongs, who act as governors of districts. Each Penlop has a tarpon or general to command his troops. Under the jongpens are lesser officials known as tumbas. There is no judiciary branch, and justice is rudely administered. A murderer is punished by the loss of a hand and being hamstrung, or sometimes is tied to the corpse of his The Bhuttia is a cheerful, hard-working and easily contented individual. He is naturally brave, and has the makings of a good soldier in him. He is generally medium-sized, broad and sturdy, with thick muscular legs such as I have only seen equalled in the chair coolies of Hong Kong and the rickshawmen in Japan. The northern Bhutanese are fair and often blue-eyed. Their Tibetan neighbours hold them in dread. The dress of a Bhuttia man is simple and consists of one garment shaped like the Japanese kimono, kilted by a girdle at the waist to leave the legs free. Their heads and feet are generally bare. The costume of the richer folk, except on occasions of ceremony, is very much the same; but they generally wear stockings and shoes or long Chinese boots. But even the Maharajah often goes barelegged. The Bhutanese women are the ugliest specimens of femininity I have ever seen. In the south they cut their hair shorter even than the men do. But when they can they load themselves with ornaments of turquoises or coloured stones. Around Buxa the Bhuttia inhabitants build, high upon the steepest hills, villages of wooden, palm-thatched huts supported on poles which raise them well off the ground. Their household utensils and drinking vessels are usually made of the useful bamboo. Around their houses they scratch up the ground and plant a little; but their chief employment A thousand feet above Buxa, on the slopes of Sinchula, stood a hamlet of a dozen huts. Learning that the inhabitants were celebrating a yearly festival, Smith and I, accompanied by a native officer, set off to visit it. As we climbed the steep hill-side we heard fiendish yells and shrieks, and conjectured that we were coming upon a devil-dance at least. But we only found the men of the village engaged in an archery contest. Two targets were placed about a couple of hundred yards apart; and a party at either end shot at them. The small marks were rarely hit, even when we placed rupees on them to stimulate the competitors; but most of the arrows fell very close to them. A good shot was hailed with vociferous applause by the marksman's team, a bad one by the shrieks, groans and derisive laughter we had heard. When the contest was over we were invited to try our skill and luckily did not disgrace ourselves. Then the bows of the contestants were stacked together on the ground and hung with garlands and leafy branches. The men sat down in two lines forming a lane to the bows; and each drew out from the breast of his kimono a small wooden or metal cup. Several women appeared from the village, bearing food and drink in cane baskets or gaily decorated vessels made of bamboo. We learned that the feast lasted six days and that each one of the The dance finished the festivities for the day. We were led in procession by the revellers through the village with songs and beating of drums; and, having bestowed a few rupees on them, we departed amid a loud chorus of thanks. Some time afterwards I was present at a similar festival in Chunabatti, the large village containing nearly a thousand Bhuttias, a few miles over the hills from Buxa. Here the American lady missionary had resided for over fifteen years; and I asked her for some explanation of the festival. But she confessed that, even after her long residence among the villagers, she knew nothing of their beliefs, religion or ceremonies. I may mention that she had never made a convert. But as far as I could see these cis-border Bhuttias were even more ignorant of their faith than the dwellers in Bhutan. There were a few prayer flags fluttering on the hill above the village; but chortens and praying wheels were conspicuous by their absence, though there was enough This Chunabatti festival was celebrated in the same manner as the one we had seen before, with eating, drinking, dances by the women, and archery contests by the men. Some of the small boys were brought out to practise with the bow; and many of them shot quite well. But there was absolutely no trace of religious celebration. To-day the boundary-line between Bhutan and India lies generally along the summits of the last mountain-chain above the plains. Dense jungle clothes the sides of the hills and descends to meet the upward waves of the Terai Forest, which stretches along the foot of the Himalayas through Assam, Bengal, and Nepal. The mountains are cloven by deep and gloomy ravines through which swift-flowing rivers like the Menass, Raidak, Torsa, and Tista pour their waters to swell the Brahmaputra and the Ganges. Some of these torrents disappear underground a few hundred yards from the hills and leave a broad river-bed empty for miles, except during the Rains. But farther away they suddenly appear again above the surface and flow to the south. The character of the jungle in the region where they reappear is damper and more tropical than near the mountains, and has earned for the forest the title of Terai, which means "wet." Streams which on the level of Santrabari reached the plains, there vanish, to come again above the ground near Rajabhatkawa. The long belt of the Terai Jungle is nowadays patched with clearings for tea gardens; for the Duars' tea is famous. Mixed with tea grown near Darjeeling at an elevation of six thousand or seven thousand feet it forms a favourite blend. But the sportsman, no matter how fond he may be of the "cup that cheers," cannot view without regret the clearing away of thousands of acres of forests that shelter big game. And an artist would not consider the destruction of the giant, orchid-clad trees with the festoons of swinging creepers compensated for by the stretches of more profitable low green tea-bushes in symmetrical and orderly rows. Nor do the other signs of man's handiwork on a tea garden compensate for the natural beauties they replace. Hideous factories, gaunt drying and engine-houses with stove-pipe like chimneys rising above corrugated iron roofs, villages of dilapidated thatched huts sheltering the hundreds of coolies employed on the estate, and the unbeautiful bungalows of the Europeans in charge. For on each garden there are from one to four Britishers. The larger ones have a manager, two assistants, and an engineer; on the smaller ones the manager perhaps combines the functions of the others in his own person. A planter's life is a lonely one. The gardens are generally a few miles apart. Men busy, especially in the gathering season, from dawn to dark have little inclination to go visiting after the day's work is done, even if the roads were better and freer from the danger of meeting a wild elephant on them at night. But in each little district a club-house is built in some central spot within comparatively easy reach of all the gardens around. It is generally only There are few finer bodies of men in the world than the planters of India. Educated men, they lead the life of a gaucho. Hard riders, good shots, keen sportsmen, they are the best volunteers we have in the Indian Empire; and more than once some of them have worthily upheld the fame of their class in war. During the last Abor Expedition of 1912 several of the Assam Valley Light Horse, a Planters' corps, gave up their posts and went to the front as troopers. It is well to be content with your lot. From our cool hills I used to look down on the bright green patches of the gardens in the dark forests below and pity the poor planters in the humid heat of the summer months. But when I visited them I found that their sympathy went out to us in Buxa. On one occasion my host pointed to the dark wall of hills on which three tiny white specks, the Picquet Towers of my fort, shone out in the sunlight. With a sigh of compassion he said: "Whenever we look up there and think of you poor fellows shut up in that isolated spot we pity you immensely and wonder how you can bear the dreadful loneliness of it. Down here we are so much better off." As he spoke we looked towards the mountains, and at that moment a dark cloud was drawn like a pall across their face. Its black expanse was rent by vivid lightning; and the hollow roll of distant thunder in the hills told us that one of the frequent storms was raging over my little Station, while we stood in brilliant sunshine. And certainly at the moment Buxa looked a gloomy spot. Tea growing seems a profitable industry. I heard But tea growing is not all profit. Sometimes a hailstorm ruins the year's crop, frost blights the plants, and losses occur in other ways. The planters rarely own their gardens, but are usually in the service of companies in England. They are not To those fond of an outdoor existence the work is pleasant enough. Early in the morning manager and assistants mount their ponies and set out to ride over the hundreds of acres of the estate, inspect the plants, visit the nurseries, and watch the coolies at work among the bushes or clearing the jungle. Then through the factory and, if it be the season, see the baskets of leaves brought in and weighed. And back to a late breakfast, where tea rarely finds its way to the table, and a siesta until the afternoon calls them forth to ride round the garden again. It sounds an easy life and idyllic, but the planters say it is not. In any land the sight of the rich plains stretching away from the foot of the barren hills is always a tempting sight to the fierce mountain dwellers. And for the Bhutanese it must have been a sore struggle to curb their predatory instincts and cease from their profitable descents on the unwarlike inhabitants of Bengal. Wealth and women were the prizes of the freebooter until the shield of the Briton was thrust between him and his timorous prey. Yet even to-day, although their nation is at peace with us, I was surprised to learn that on such occasions the planters had never sent information to the detachment at Buxa. But they told me that, as they never saw anything of the troops there, they almost forgot |