Page:Picturesque Nepal.djvu/192

it has been the site of some of the most epoch-making events in the modern annals of the State. Here in 1846 took place a series of indiscriminate murders and massacres, the truth regarding which will never be known, but the best blood of the country seems to have been wantonly spilt to satisfy the ambitions of the various political parties striving for sole power. Dr. Oldfield, who came to Nepal some four years after this "Reign of Terror," and lived for many years in the State, has left lurid accounts of the slaughters in the "Kot," and with his description in hand the tragedies can be realized. It is a story of unarmed men hunted from room to room only to be cut down at last, or others herded like sheep in the open courtyard, and picked off with rifles by marksmen stationed in the balconies. There is the window also, in the uppermost story, where the chronicler relates the Queen stood, a calm and unmoved witness of the horrors being perpetrated below, and only leaning forward now and again to urge on her blood-thirsty supporters, and calling out, "Kill and