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for the Right Honourable the Governor-General's Camp, after having had, on the previous evening, in my company, a courteous audience of leave from the Muha Rajah and his Son.

2. On his way through the city again yesterday, the Muha Rajah threw himself into Captain Smith's path, for the purpose of saying that the recent exorbitancies had been the doing of the unruly heir apparent ; that his Highness would take care to prevent them in future; and that he would satisfactorily adjust with the Resident the pending matters of dispute.

3. It appears, therefore, that however gross the Rajah's hypocrisy, the restraining effect of this measure, which was announced to the Rajah merely as the result of a summons to myself that I could not from ill health obcy, has been rightly calculated, and is already in operation. That the operation may continue, and be attended with some material degree of efficacy, is all we have at present to desire.

4. Captain Smith's prompt offer of his services on this occasion, the moment he thought they might be useful, is in entire harmony with prior similar acts of devotion, and deserves the highest commendation. With what intelligent industry he has shown since his arrival here, to make himself master of the state of affairs, the Right Honourable the Governor-General will soon have opportunity to judge, and on this point

VOL. I.

D

I will not presume to anticipate the approbation of his Lordship.

To Captain Smith's care I have committed some principal dispatches of the past three years, duly arranged, and which Captain Smith is prepared to give either a written or verbal summary of, for the information of the Right Honourable the Governor-General.

From Major Lawrence, Resident, to T. Currie, Esq., Secretary to the Government of India.

Sir,

Nepaul, 27th December, 1843.

I have the honour to enclose what appears to me to be a very complete return of the Nepaul Military Establishment; and trust that the Right Honourable the Governor-General will approve of the spirit that has induced Captain Smith to make the inquiries requisite

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for its preparation, which I understand he has done, at some expense and much labour.

*

*

*

*

3. My short observation of the Goorkha Force, at the capital, leads me to judge that Captain Smith's notes on the army are in the main correct, and I have also reason to believe that the numbers of men, and quantities of stores entered on his return, are not far from the truth.

CHAPTER II.

TOPOGRAPHY OF NEPAUL.

THE kingdom of Nepaul has now, for some years past, occupied so distinct and defined a position in our best maps of India, that, did not custom sanction a particular topographical account of every place to which it has become expedient to devote a volume, the appropriation of a few pages to a description of the situation. and boundaries of the kingdom would be supererogatory. It is manifestly the duty of every writer, to render his details clear to the meanest

perception, and there is certainly no better way of reaching completeness than by the assumption that every reader is totally ignorant of the matter treated, yet avid for information and entirely dependant on the author's accuracy and

conscientiousness.

The kingdom, or state of Nepaul, is a tract of country about seven hundred and fifty miles. in length, and one hundred and seventy in breadth, situated between 26° 31' and 30° N. latitude. It is bounded on the north by a part of Thibet, from which it is separated by the Himalaya chain;* on the cast, by Bootan and

*The boundary line to the north is not in our maps properly laid down. It appears by a recent communication from a Nepaul officer, who accompanied the mission to England in the year 1850, that the line should leave the boundary as laid down by us at Gossingtan, from which place, westward, both slopes of the main chain of the Himalayas belong to Nepaul. The boundary then runs along a ridge to the north of the Himalaya, including Mustang, a place about thirty miles from the foot of Dhawalagiri, and much resorted to by pilgrims. From Mustang the