Previous to the British annexation of the Dwârs from Bhutân, the area of the kingdom was reckoned at 20,000 sq. miles. The population of the country now remaining to Bhutân was estimated in 1864 at 20,000 souls. Later information, however, points to a larger figure. The people are industrious, and devote themselves to agriculture, but from the geological structure of the country, and from the insecurity of property, regular husbandry is limited to comparatively few spots. The people are oppressed and poor. “Nothing that a Bhutiâ possesses is his own,” wrote the British envoy in 1864; “he is at all times liable to lose it if it attracts the cupidity of any one more powerful than himself. The lower classes, whether villagers or public servants, are little better than the slaves of higher officials. In regard to them no rights of property are observed, and they have at once to surrender anything that is demanded of them. There never was, I fancy, a country in which the doctrine of ‘ might is right* formed more completely the whole and sole law and custom of the land than it does in Bhutân. No official receives a salary; he has certain districts made over to him, and he may get what he can out of them; a certain portion of his gains he is compelled to send to the Darbâr; and the more he extorts and the more he sends to his superior, the longer his tenure of office is likely to be.” Captain Pemberton thus describes their moral condition— “I sometimes saw a few persons in whom the demoralizing influences of such a state of society had yet left a trace of the image in which they were originally created, and where the feelings of nature still exercised their accustomed influence, but the exceptions were rare, and although I have travelled and resided amongst various savage tribes on our frontiers, I have never yet known a people so wholly degraded as the Bhutiâs.” Physically the Bhutiâs are a fine race, although dirty in their habits and persons. Their food consists of meat, chiefly pork, turnips, rice, barley-meal, and tea made from the brick-tea of China. Their favourite drink is chong, distilled from rice or barley and millet, and Ματωά, beer made from fermented millet. A loose woollen coat reaching to the knees, and bound round the waist by a thick fold of cotton cloth, forms the dress of the men; the women’s dress is a long cloak with loose sleeves. The houses of the Bhutiâs are of three and four stories; all the floors are neatly boarded with deal; and on two sides of the house is a verandah ornamented with carved work generally painted. The Bhutiâs are neat joiners, and their doors, windows, and panelling are perfect in their way. No iron-work is used; the doors open on ingenious wooden hinges. The appearance of the houses is precisely that of Swiss chalets, picturesque and comfortable—the only drawback being a want of chimneys, which the Bhutiâs do not know how to construct. The people nominally profess the Buddhist religion, but in reality their religious exercises are confined to the propitiation of evil spirits, and the mechanical recital of a few sacred sentences. Around the cottages in the mountains the land is cleared for cultivation, and produces thriving crops of barley, wheat, buckwheat, millet, mustard, chillies, &c. Turnips of excellent quality are extensively grown; they are free from fibre and remarkably sweet. The wheat and barley have a full round grain, and the climate is well adapted to the production of both European and Asiatic vegetables. Potatoes have been introduced. The Bhutiâs lay out their fields in a series of terraces cut out of the sides of the hills; each terrace is rivetted and supported by stone embankments, sometimes twenty feet high. Every field is carefully fenced with pine branches, or protected by a stone wall. A complete system of irrigation permeates the whole cultivated part of a village, the water being often brought from a long distance by stone aqueducts. Bhutiâs do not care to extend their cultivation, as an increased revenue is exacted in proportion to the land cultivated, but devote their whole energies to make the land yield twice what it is estimated to produce. The forests of Bhutân abound in many varieties of stately trees. Among them are the beech, ash, birch, maple, cypress, and yew. Firs and pines cover the mountain heights; and below these, but still at an elevation of eight or nine thousand feet, is a zone of vegetation, consisting principally of oaks and rhododendrons. The cinnamon tree is also found. Some of the roots and branches were examined by Turner during his journey to Thibet; but the plant being neither in blossom nor bearing fruit, it was impossible to decide whether it was the true cinnamon or an inferior kind of cassia. The leaf, however, corresponded with the description given of the true cinnamon by Linnaeus. The lower ranges of the hills abound in animal life. Elephants are so numerous as to be dangerous to travellers; but tigers are not common, except near the River Tistâ. Leopards abound in the Hah valley; deer everywhere, some of them of a very large species. The musk deer is found in the snows, and the barking deer on every hill side. Wild hogs are met with even at great elevations. Large squirrels are common. Bears and rhinoceros are also found. Pheasants, jungle fowls, pigeons, and other small game abound. The Bhutiâs are no sportsmen. They have a superstitious objection to firing a gun, thinking that it offends the deities of the woods and valleys, and brings down rain. A species of horse, which seems indigenous to Bhutan, and is used as a domestic animal, is called tangan, from Tângastan, the general appellation of that assemblage of mountains which constitutes the territory of Bhutan. It is peculiar to this tract, not being found in any of the neighbouring countries of Assam, Nepâl, Thibet, or Bengal, and unitee in an eminent degree the two qualities of strength and beauty. The tdngan horse usually stands about thirteen hands high, is short bodied, clean-limbed, deep in the chest, and extremely active, his colour usually inclining to piebald. In so barren and rude a country the manufacturing industry of its people is, as might be expected, in a low stage, the few articles produced being all destined for home consumption. These consist of coarse blankets and cotton cloths made by the villagers inhabiting the southern tract. Leather, from the hide of the buffalo, imperfectly tanned, furnishes the soles of snow boots. Circular bowls are neatly turned from various woods. A small quantity of paper is made from a plant described as the Daphne papyrifera. Swords, iron spears, and arrow-heads, and a few copper caldrons fabricated from the metal obtained in the country, complete the list of manufactures. The foreign trade of Bhutan has greatly declined. In 1809 the trade between Assam and Bhutan amounted to £20,000 per annum, the lac, madder, silk, erendi cloth, and dried fish of Assam, being exchanged for the woollens, gold-dust, salt, musk, horses, and silk of Bhutan. At present very little trade is carried on by Bhutan with the neighbouring countries. The military resources of the country are on an insignificant scale. Beyond the guards for the defence of the various castles, there is nothing like a standing army. The total military force was estimated by the British envoy in 1864 at 6000. The climate of Bhutan varies according to the difference of elevation. At the time when the inhabitants of Punâkhâ (the winter residence of the Râjâs) are afraid of exposing themselves to the blazing sun, those of Ghâsâ experience all the rigour of winter, and are chilled by perpetual snows. Yet these places are within sight of each other. The rains descend in floods upon the heights; but in the vicinity of Tâsi-sudon, the capital, they are moderate; there are frequent showers, but nothing that can be compared to the tropical rains of Bengal. Owing to the great elevation and steepness of the mountains, dreadful storms arise among the hollows, often attended with fatal results.

History.— Bhutan formerly belonged to a tribe called by the Bhutiâs Tephu, generally believed to have been the people of Kuch Behar. About two hundred years ago some Thibetan soldiers subjugated the Tephus, took possession of the country, and settled down in it. At the head of the Bhutan government there are nominally two supreme authorities, the Dharm Râjâ, the spiritual head, and the Deb Râjâ, the temporal ruler. To aid these Râjâs in administering the country, there is a council of permanent ministers, called the Lenehen. Practically, however, there is no government all. Subordinate officers and rapacious governors of forts wield all the power of the state, and tyranny, oppression, and anarchy reign over the whole country. The Dharm Râjâ succeeds as an incarnation of the deity. On the death of a Dharm Râjâ a year or two elapses, and the new incarnation then reappears in the shape of a child who generally happens to be born in the family of a principal officer. The child establishes his identity by recognizing the cooking utensils, &c., of the late Dharm Râjâ; he is then trained in a monastery, and on attaining his majority is recognized as Râjâ, though he exercises no more real authority in his majority than he did in his infancy. The Deb Râjâ is in theory elected by the council. In practice he is merely the nominee of whichever of the two governors of East and West Bhutan happens for the time to be the more powerful. The relations of the British with Bhutan commenced in 1772, when the Bhutiâs invaded the principality of Kuch Behar, a dependency of Bengal. The Kuch Behar Râjâ applied for aid, and a force under Captain James was despatched to his assistance; the invaders were expelled and pursued into their own territories. Upon the intercession of Teshu Lama, then regent of Thibet, a treaty of peace was concluded in 1774 between the East India Company and the ruler of Bhutan. In 1783 Captain Turner was deputed to Bhutan, with a view of promoting commercial intercourse, but his mission proved unsuccessful. From this period little intercourse took place with Bhutan, until the occupation of Assam by the British in 1826. It was then discovered that the Bhutiâs had usurped several tracts of low land lying at the foot of the mountains, called the Dwârs or passes, and for these they agreed to pay a small tribute. They failed to do so, however, and availed themselves of the command of the passes to commit depredations within the British territory. Captain Pemberton was accordingly deputed to Bhutan to adjust the points of difference. But his negotiations yielded no definite result; and every other means of obtaining redress and security proving unsuccessful, the Assam Dwârs were wrested from the Bhutiâs, and the British Government consented to pay to Bhutan a sum of £1000 per annum as compensation for the resumption of their tenure, during the good behaviour of the Bhutiâs. Continued outrages and aggressions were, however, committed by the Bhutiâs on British subjects in the Dwârs. Notwithstanding repeated remonstrances and threats, scarcely a year passed without the occurrence of several raids in British territory headed by Bhutiâ officials, in which they plundered the inhabitants, massacred them, or carried them away as slaves. In 1863 Mr Ashley Eden was sent as an envoy to Bhutan to demand reparation for these outrages. He did not succeed in his mission; he was subjected to the grossest insults; and under compulsion signed a treaty giving over the disputed territory to Bhutan, and making other concessions which the Bhutan Government demanded. On Mr Eden’s return the viceroy at once disavowed his treaty, sternly stopped the former allowance for the Assam Dwârs, and demanded the immediate restoration of all British subjects kidnapped during the last five years. The Bhutiâs not complying with this demand, the Governor-General issued a proclamation, dated the 12th November 1864, by which the eleven Western or Bengal Dwârs were forthwith incorporated with the Queen’s Indian dominions. No resistance was at first offered to the annexation; but, suddenly, in January 1865, the Bhutiâs surprised the English garrison at Diwângiri, and the post was abandoned with the loss of two mountain train guns. This disaster was soon retrieved by General Tombs, and the Bhutiâs were compelled to sue for peace, which was concluded on the 11th November 1865. The Bhutân Government formally ceded all the eighteen Dwârs of Bengal and Assam, with the rest of the territory taken from them, and agreed to liberate all kidnapped British subjects. As the revenues of Bhutân mainly depended on these Dwârs, the British Government, in return for these concessions, undertook to pay the Deb and Dhârm Bâjâs annually, subject to the condition of their continued good behaviour, an allowance beginning at £2500 and rising gradually to a maximum of twice that amount. Since that time nothing of importance has occurred, and the annexed territories have settled down into peaceful and prosperous British districts.