ners, by having not only the
valuable productions of Nepaul brought to our markets, but also those of
the more distant Thibet, which are always precious from their intrinsic
value, and the cost of which is at present greatly increased by reason of
the expensive journey across the Nepaulese hills in addition to the
transit of the Himalayas.

The Terai is at present the only part of the Nepaul dominions which is
profitable from the revenue yielded by its productions. Valuable timber
and turpentine, ivory and hides, are shipped down the Boori Gundak, on
which river Segowly is situated, to Calcutta; still the cost of a
government licence for cutting timber is so heavy as in a great measure
to deter speculators from engaging in an undertaking in which so
considerable an outlay is demanded, exclusive of the expenses attendant
on the felling and transport of the timber. Besides the saul the Terai
contains ebony, mimosa, and other useful trees.

The trade in hides is not, as I have already remarked, carried out to the
extent it is capable of. But in spite of all these drawbacks, the Terai
alone, of all the Nepaul dominions, can be looked upon by the British as
offering a profitable field for trade and commercial speculations.

Nevertheless, the interior of Nepaul contains productions far more
valuable than those of the Terai. Its mineral resources are such as
would in all probability, if properly developed, render their
mountainous, and in some parts barren country, one of the richest in the
world. Iron, lead, copper, and zinc mines abound, and are in fact
worked, but, from all I could learn, so very badly, that, even did their
roads allow of the export of the metals, it is to be questioned whether,
without the application of a better system, enough metal could be
obtained to do more than supply the home demand.

However that may be, there is no doubt of the existence of these mines,
and, if ever there were tolerable roads, the necessary skill for working
them would doubtless follow. So backward are the Nepaulese in their
treatment of minerals, that they cannot smelt lead: the fact of their
_beating_ cannon-balls into shape proves their incapacity to cast iron,
unless it results from a peculiarity of the ore, so frequent in India,
which, instead of yielding cast-iron at once when reduced in the usual
way, gives wootz--a condition of iron closely allied to steel, ductile
but not fusible. Of this I had no opportunity of