pulsory trade indulged in by all officials. The
Jongpen and Tarjums make their fortunes out of
tea, which is supplied from Lhasa. They buy at
three rupees and compel the landholders to purchase
from them at four, and if they cannot pay at once
the debt is written down against them, to be collected
later by seizure and sale of property. The result is
general indebtedness, which is further increased by
exactions on account of government transport and
supplies. The official Government merchant, or Yung-
chong, comes from Lhasa with commodities of every
kind, such as carpets, tea, cloth, &c., to be sold for the
profit of the national exchequer. He travels free of
charge; in other words, all villagers have to carry all his
goods, including the government property and his own
(for herein lies his profit), for nothing, and also to supply
him with grass, fuel, fodder, tents and food without
payment. He in turn sells to petty traders, who also
receive duly signed warrants permitting them to receive
supplies and transport free of charge, and these travel
over the country as locusts devouring the people. If
there is any deficiency in the local arrangements the
Jongpen or Tarjum supplies from his own store and
recovers the cost from the villagers, and it is a common
trick to affect dissatisfaction with the supplies of
humble landholders in order to exact further dues from
them. The great annual fair at Gartok is principally
composed of petty traders, who have gone there to
meet the Yungchong, or official government merchant,
and to pay up their accounts. Should the sheep or
cattle of the Jongpen or Tarjum be stolen by dacoits,
there is only one solution of the difficulty, and that is
to recover the loss from the peasantry who ought to
have prevented the robbery. I t is owing to these
endless exactions that the cultivators have fled from this
district to our territory, and the history of the movement
is written clearly enough in statistics, for the
population of pargana Darma has almost doubled in
the last thirty years, whereas in Taklakot there has been
a decrease. Polyandry and celibacy have undoubtedly
contributed their share to this result on the Tibetan
side, while the more reasonable relations between the
sexes amongst the Bhotias have also been an important
item on ours.
Although the history of the agriculturist in the
Taklakot district has been a chequered one, that of
the trader has been the reverse, for during the last sixty
years the trade has increased more than elevenfold.
Nor is it possible to discover the exact dimensions of
the present trade, as the old system of barter, although
still continuing, is largely supplemented by the Indian
rupee, and it is difficult to check the amount of solid
cash and precious stones that cross the border. It is a
patent fact, however, that the Indian rupee with all its
fractions, and also the Indian copper coinage, are freely
current in this part of Tibet, and I am informed, on good
authority, that they are preferred in trade to the Tibetan
coin and frequently to barter. Even the Nepalese
coinage takes a prior rank to that of Lhasa in the
popular estimation. Indian notes and British gold
are still looked on with suspicion in this part of
Tibet, which is in some ways a remarkable fact, as
in the tracts of Nepal adjacent to these parts (and
there is considerable communication between that
country and Taklakot) Indian notes are at a heavy
premium.
From the point of view of trade Taklakot is undoubtedly
a rising centre, the principal reasons being