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Updated: June 6, 2025
So backward are the Nepaulese in their treatment of minerals, that they cannot smelt lead: the fact of their beating cannon-balls into shape proves their incapacity to cast iron, unless it results from a peculiarity of the ore, so frequent in India, which, instead of yielding cast-iron at once when reduced in the usual way, gives wootz a condition of iron closely allied to steel, ductile but not fusible.
Such a state of things we may not live to see, but it is by no means unlikely that ere long a railway may run from Calcutta to the northern frontier of British India; so that, when Nepaul is thrown open to European enterprise, its costly productions will be easily and cheaply transported to the nearest port, while the now almost uncivilized Nepaulese would obtain European luxuries unknown to any of them except Jung Bahadoor and his travelled suite.
Indeed I do not think that they are now; but I had had an opportunity during the Indian Mutiny, when I was attached to the Nepaulese contingent, of forming an intimacy with a "Guru" connected with the force.
We gladly turned our backs to the furious clouds of dust and gusts of scorching wind, and led by a Nepaulee tracker, were soon crashing heavily through the jungle. When hunting with elephants, the Nepaulese beat in a dense line, the heads of the elephants touching each other. In this manner we were now proceeding, when S. called out, 'There goes the tiger.
Many of them are good charcoal-burners, and indeed their principal occupation is supplying the adjacent villages with charcoal and firewood. They use small narrow-edged axes for felling, but for lopping they invariably use the Nepaulese national weapon the kookree. This is a heavy, curved knife, with a broad blade, the edge very sharp, and the back thick and heavy.
The Nepaulese women wore bracelets and necklaces of Indian coins, besides silver anklets, finger- and nose-rings, gold earrings and beads, and each had also suspended from her neck a silver snuff-box. These boxes were three or four inches square, made of the purest metal, and handsomely carved and embossed.
The peculiar shape added to the weight of the blade gives an extraordinary force to a blow, and the blade being double-edged for three inches from the point, inflicts a fearful wound: altogether it is a very desperate weapon, and admirably adapted for this kind of sport. A feat is frequently performed by the Nepaulese by cutting off a buffalo's head at one blow of a sabre or tulwal.
It is now nearly twenty-seven years ago long before the Theosophical Society was founded, or Esoteric Buddhism was known to exist in the form recently revealed to us by Mr Sinnett that I became the chela, or pupil, of an adept of Buddhist occultism in Khatmandhu. At that time Englishmen, unless attached to the Residency, were not permitted to reside in that picturesque Nepaulese town.
It will only take me five hours at most. By noon I shall be back with you." "What? And leave us here unprotected among the wild beasts and the savages?" Lady Meadowcroft cried, horrified. "In the midst of the forest! Dr. Cumberledge, how can you?" "You are NOT unprotected," I answered, soothing her. "You have Hilda with you. She is worth ten men. And besides, our Nepaulese are fairly trustworthy."
When the gun goes off there is a mighty splutter, a roar like that of a small cannon, and the slugs go hurtling through the bushes, carrying away twigs and leaves, and not unfrequently smashing up the game so that it is almost useless for the table. The Banturs, who principally inhabit these jungles, are mostly of Nepaulese origin.
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