An Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet - Prajna Quest

;172- BOOTAN.character, all circumstances considered, isnot very much to be wonderedat. Let it be remembered, that, in the first career of life, by acontinuance in a state of celibacy, the Booteea isrecommended to distinction;as on the contrary, any matrimonial contract proves almosta certain hindrance to his rise in rank, or his advancement to officesof political importance. Having therefore made the first sacrifice toambition, and remained long single, in the hope of attaining to higherdignities and emoluments;chagrined, at length, by a series of disappointments,if a bare competency has been the fruit of his long service,he withdraws himself from public life : being at the same time somewhatadvanced in years, his passion for connubial connection, isweakened, and his natural apathy confinned.Having been detachedby early habit from society, uninfluenced by tiesof duty or affectionto family or friends, his most prevailing impulse is the love of easeand indolence and vanity at once direct his choice to religiousretirement.The multitude flatter with their admiration the penitentialdevotee ; and motives perhaps merely temporal, falsely obtain thepraise of exalted piety.It will be obvious from hence, since population is opposed by twosuch powerful bars as ambition and religion, how great a diminution inthe number of inhabitants must inevitably be the result.In fact, thehigher orders of men, entirely engrossed by political or ecclesiasticalduties, leave to the husbandman and labourer, to those who till thefields and live by their industry, the exclusive charge of propagatingthe species.Having crossed the summit of Pomaela, we descended between the