us peasants to lie fallow a
moment longer than is necessary.

At certain seasons every inhabitant capable of wielding the hoe is at
work, and there is much incentive to such industry, for the soil is
inexhaustible, and seems as if it could go on for an indefinite period
yielding its four crops a year--namely, wheat, rice, Indian corn, and
vegetables--supporting thereby a double population. The plough is never
used. It struck me that the introduction of buffaloes from the plains
would be advantageous in assisting the worthy Newar, whose religious
scruples prevent his using the bullock. There is a species of small
buffalo, which is a native of the Himalayas, but it is never brought down
by the Bhootyas into the plains, nor even to Katmandu.

We went one day to visit the arsenal, which a veteran of the Nepaul army
took an especial delight in exhibiting, and naturally looked for
expressions of wonder and delight from the barbarians. But the only
astonishment we felt was, that such a mass of fire-arms, so excessively
old and so excessively dirty, should be thought worthy of being carefully
ranged throughout the long dark rooms. In a corner of one of these rooms
the light streamed brightly through a window on some old-fashioned
firelocks bearing an English maker's name; they were trophies of the war
with the British, and were held worthy of conspicuous places in the
Nepaul arsenal. The delighted old Colonel pointed these out to us with a
laudable pride; he said the arsenal contained 100,000 stand of arms, and
expected us to believe it. Had they been in proper order, the collection
would have been of importance numerically considered.

Their artillery was insignificant, but they possessed trophies denied to
many more powerful nations in a pair of brass 2-pounders, also taken from
the British in the same disastrous campaign. I looked as abashed and
mortified as I could, and pleased the Colonel exceedingly thereby. In
the same establishment was carried on the process of manufacturing powder
of a very coarse grain, and we were shown sundry store-rooms containing
grape and canister.

Leaving the arsenal, we mounted our elephants, crossed the parade-ground
and the river, and, passing through the massive gateway, reached the
magazine, situated in the interior of the city, where we had an
opportunity of witnessing the process of hammering iron into balls. The
Nepaulese can produce no heat sufficient to cast balls, and ar