from Chinese Tartars to the country we had just quitted.
The kingdom of Nepaul extends for upwards of three hundred miles along
the southern slopes of the Himalayas, and is said to contain a population
of about five millions. Of these four hundred thousand inhabit the
valley of Nepaul proper. The lands are divided into four classes of
tenures--first, crown lands; secondly, Kroos or Soona Birtha, belonging
to Brahmins or Newars; thirdly, Kohriya or Bari, barren lands granted for
cultivation; and, lastly (and this is the most extensive class of the
four), Kaith, in which the proprietor is at all charges of tillage,
dividing the produce with the cultivator.

The silver coinage of Nepaul is somewhat similar to that in use
throughout British India; in all the northern provinces of which,
adjoining Nepaul, it passes current: the copper coinage is most
extensive, and consists of shapeless lumps of copper, eighteen or twenty
of which go to a halfpenny; they are used by the natives of India in
preference to their own pice.

But it is time to take leave of this interesting country, with its snowy
mountains and sunny valleys--its ignorant people and enlightened
Minister--its bloodstained past and hopeful future. I had already
mentally whispered my adieu, as, riding behind my companion on the
rawboned pony, I crossed the boundary stream; and pleased and interested
as we had been with our short stay in Nepaul, still we could not help
regretting that it had not fallen to our lot to discover new wonders--to
encamp on the shores of the great lake situated in the distant province
of Malebum, the existence of which was vaguely hinted at by my friend
Colonel Dhere Shum Shere--to explore unvisited mountains, and to
luxuriate in the magnificent scenery which they must contain; the
enjoyment heightened by the feeling that we were the first Europeans who
had penetrated their inhospitable recesses.

CHAPTER XVI.

_Journey to Lucknow--Nocturnal disasters--View of the
Himalayas--Wild-beast fights--Banquet given by the King of Oudh--Grand
display of fireworks--Our return to cantonments_.

Unquestionably the pleasures of travelling cannot be said to be
altogether unalloyed--a consideration which the journey from Segowly to
Lucknow irresistibly forced upon our minds, how determined soever we
might be to adhere to the traveller's first principle of making the best
of everything. We left the station about dusk, upon a night in which