Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 14, 2025
The appearance of a hill coolie as he thus staggers along under his tremendous burden is singular enough, and so totally unlike that of the coolies of the plains, that it was a sort of promise of there being in store for us more curiosities, both of Nepaulese men and manners, in their native country, and we looked with no little interest upon the first specimens we had seen of the Newar race the aborigines of Nepaul.
The whole appearance of the houses and temples carries one far from the mud-huts or close cities of the plains of India, into the land of chopsticks and small feet, and the traveller feels much nearer to Pekin than to Calcutta as he wanders along the empty streets under the frowning houses and indescribable temples of the Newar town of Patn.
My Ghorka guide could give me no information as to what particular divinity this figure was intended to represent. The other pillar was crowned by the figure of a Newar monarch with an unpronounceable name, who was watched over by a cobra, standing upon its tail, and looking over his head with its mouth wide open.
No less singular were the residences of the old Newar nobility, a race which no longer exists, and the only remains of which now extant are their ruined habitations, evidently destined to succumb before long to the same all-destroying power which has long since obliterated every trace of their former owners.
Beyond this interesting foreground stretched the luxuriant valley, its gentle slopes and eminences terraced to their summits, which were often crowned by some old fortified Newar town: the terraces, tinged with the brilliant green of the young crops, rose one above another to the base of the walls, while beneath the Bhagmutty wound its tortuous course to the romantic gorge in the mountains, through which it leaves this favoured valley to traverse lazily the uninteresting plains of upper India.
It struck me that the introduction of buffaloes from the plains would be advantageous in assisting the worthy Newar, whose religious scruples prevent his using the bullock. There is a species of small buffalo, which is a native of the Himalayas, but it is never brought down by the Bhootyas into the plains, nor even to Katmandu.
The knolls, wooded or terraced, with romantic old Newar towns crowning their summits, the five rivers of the valley winding amongst verdant meadows, the banks here and there precipitous, where the soft clayey soil had yielded to the action of the torrent in the rains, the glittering city itself, the narrow paved ways leading between high hedges of prickly pear, the pagodas and temples studded in all directions, presented a scene as picturesque and perhaps more interesting than would have been afforded by the still lake embedded in wild mountains, and frowned upon by snow-capped peaks; while the richly cultivated knolls in the valley formed fertile islands, the luxuriant vegetation of which would have softened the scene into one of exquisite beauty.
It has now fallen into much the same dismantled state as its old rival, while it looked much more picturesque, standing as it does on a commanding eminence, terraced with rich rice-fields. The Durbar is a fine old building, characteristic of the architecture of the country, and the town contains many ancient Newar buildings of much interest.
We looked with astonishment and delight at the incongruous mass of buildings, of the most varied and fantastic construction, yet massive and substantial; but whence the designs originated, or in what other part of the known world anything is to be seen approaching to the style of Newar architecture, it would be impossible to conjecture.
Bhimphede is a Newar village, the inhabitants being the aborigines of the country. It is said to derive its name from a Hindoo divinity named Bheem having on some occasion happened to stop there. It is distant from Hetowra about 18 miles, and the road might be much improved by a little engineering.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking