Nepal

The Newars are skilful workmen. Their bricks are good, as is also their pottery. There are excellent carpenters, though the use of the large saw is still unknown, and planks are cut with chisel and mallet. Many of the wood carvings on the temples are of the highest artistic excellence. The modern coinage is struck by machinery, a regular mint having been established by Sir Jung Bahadur at Kathmandu, and since improved by his successors.

Government.

Till the fall of the Chinese Empire Nepal maintained relations with China and sent periodically an em bassy with presents to Peking. The country is entirely independ ent as regards its foreign relations and domestic affairs. The British Envoy at the court is a purely diplomatic official. Theo retically the Government of Nepal is a despotism, and His Majesty the Maharajadhiraj or king is paramount. In practice, all the real power has long been in the hands of His Highness the Maharaja or prime minister, who is also supreme commander in-chief. Under the prime minister there is a council, consisting of the relatives of the king, the Raj Guru, the generals, and a few other officials known as Kajis, Sirdars and Bhardars, which is consulted on all important business, and which forms a court of appeal for disputed cases from the courts of law. There are civil and criminal courts.

The old savage legal code with its ordeals by fire and water, and its punishments by mutilation and torture was abolished by the prime minister Sir Jung Bahadur after his return from England in 1851. Treason, rebellion and desertion in war-time are punishable by death. Murder and the killing of cows are capital offences. Manslaughter and maiming of cows are punish able by imprisonment for life, and other offences against the person, property or caste by imprisonment or fine. Brahmans and women are exempt from capital punishment. Bankruptcy laws have been recently introduced. The marriage laws are peculiar. Among the Gurkhas the laws resemble those of other Hindus as regards the marriage of widows, polygamy, etc., but among the Newars every girl while still an infant is married with much ceremony to a bel fruit, which is then thrown into some sacred stream. As the fate of the fruit is unknown, a Newari is supposed never to become a widow. At the age of puberty a husband is selected, but the woman can at any moment divorce herself by placing a betel-nut under her husband's pillow. Slavery

was completely abolished throughout the kingdom in 1925 by the prime minister, General Sir Chandra' Shumshere Jung.

The revenue is mainly drawn from the land-tax, customs, mines, forests and monopolies. About io% of the tarai lands, and 2o% of the hill lands, are private property. Some lands were assigned by the Gorkhali rajas to Brahmans, soldiers and others, and these are untaxed. Others, which were the gifts of the old Newar kings, pay from 4 to 8 annas per bigha. A considerable revenue in the shape of royalty is obtained from mines of copper, iron, etc. The taxes on merchandise amount to from 12 to 14% on the value of the goods carried to and from British India, and from 5 to 6% on goods exported to Tibet.

Army.—The Gorkhalis are a military race. The standing army consists of about 45,00o men. in a fair state of efficiency. There is also a reserve, consisting of men who have served for a few years and taken their discharge, but can be called on again to enter the ranks. These would probably raise the strength to between 70,00o and 80,000 men. The regiments are formed on the British system, and similarly drilled and officered. Each man carries in addition to a bayonet a kukri or native knife. There is practically no cavalry, the country not being suited for horses. The artillery is on a larger scale, and consists nearly entirely of mountain guns. There is a large arsenal well provided with sup plies of gunpowder and military stores. Rifles and ammunition are for the most part obtained from India.

In addition to its own army, Nepal supplies to the British army in India a large force of splendid soldiers. (H. WN.; X.) Nepal and the somewhat similar country of Kashmir are peculiar among the Hindu states of India in possessing an his torical literature. The Nepalese V anicavali professes to start from a very early period in the Satya Yuga, when the present valley was still a lake. The earlier portion of it is devoted to the Satya and Treta Yugas, and contains mythological tales and traditions having reference to various sacred localities in the country. During these two Yugas, and also the Dwapara Yuga, the V amcavali deals in round numbers of thousands of years.