SIKHIM AND BHUTAN
Bengal. The temper of the Deb Raja does not seem to have been so cordial as at the time of Bogle’s first visit, but “after many tiresome conferences and further negotiations, in which the Penchen Rimpochi’s people assisted,” Bogle was able to obtain the Deb Raja’s consent to his articles of trade. He failed, however, to obtain permission for English or European traders to enter the Deb Raja’s dominions, and it was evidently on this point chiefly that the conferences were “tiresome” and ultimately “fruitless.” The other difficulty he had to face was that freedom of trade in Bhutan would affect the Deb Raja’s personal profits from the monopoly he enjoyed.
Bogle's Impression of the Country.—Bogle, as before noticed, carried away a much more pleasing impression of the country than any of his successors after Turner, except myself. Indeed, he gives us a picture of good government and Arcadian simplicity. It must be admitted, however, that the educated Bhutanese whom one meets outside their country, though rough in manners, are pleasant and agreeable, and that they were, as a people, never so black as they were painted by Eden, who had very good reasons for only seeing the worst side of their character. A brief account of Bogle’s impressions will be interesting, as they coincide very much with the opinion formed by me during my Mission of 1906, and serve to show that the very unfavourable judgment passed upon them by Eden was hardly a true one, and was caused very much by his own treatment. Bogle found the government of Bhutan to be based on a theocracy which, while retaining a nominal, and to some extent a real, supremacy in the affairs of the country, had entrusted the administration of all temporal matters to a body of laymen. This body retained the election of the Deb Raja, the head of the temporal power, and his deposition in its own hands, made him accountable to itself for the conduct of affairs, and without its consent the Deb Raja could undertake no measure of importance in the management of the State.
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