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Updated: June 26, 2025
I was amused by the cool way in which my Ghorka guard treated the village lads, when they wanted help in my service, taking them by the shoulder, pulling out their knives for them, placing them in their bands, and setting them to cut down a tree, or to chop firewood, which they seldom refused to do, when a little such douce violence was applied.
Hence Nepaul is a warlike state, not merely from the natural disposition of its Ghorka conquerors, but from the inducements held out to them to become soldiers. What would our grumbling agricultural population say to having soldiers billeted in each village, and living on the fat of the land?
But the valley of Nepaul, and the wild mountains of Ghorka, and the dashing rivers and the rocky glens, all sank into insignificance when I returned once more irresistibly fascinated by the wonders which the snowy chain seemed to exhibit anew every moment, as clouds cleared away from off the frightful precipices, or laid bare huge craggy peaks: For an hour did I gaze upon this incomparable scene, as upon one which the experience of a lifetime can seldom boast, for, though I was prepared by an alpine experience in Europe, and had stretched my imagination to the utmost in my anticipations of what would be the appearance of the highest mountains in the world, I could never have conceived far less is it possible for me to describe the scene I beheld from the summit of Sheopoori.
To the Ghorka soldiers I said that the present they would receive, and the character they would take to their commandant, depended on their carrying out this point, which had been fully explained before starting. My servants I told that their pay and reward also depended on their implicit obedience.
The Bhotan coolies behaved worse than ever; their conduct being in all respects typical of the turbulent, mulish race to which they belong. They had been plundering my provisions as they went along, and neither their Sirdar nor the Ghorka soldiers had the smallest authority over them.
The Chinese followed the retiring force across their own frontier, and not until they had reached the valley of Noyakot, eighteen miles from Katmandu, did they consent to treat for peace, which was now humbly sued for by the Ghorka King.
The capital town of the country from which they descended into the valley of Nepaul is Ghorka, situated about fifty miles westward of Katmandu.
A distant hill was pointed out to me as that on which the city of Ghorka was perched, a fitting residence for the wild race to whom it gives birth.
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