CHAPTER XIII - TRADE OF TIBET

Summary

The foreign trade of Tibet is very considerable. Being mountainous, naturally barren, and but thinly peopled, it requires large supplies from other countries, and its valuable productions furnish it with the means of procuring them. It yields gold, musk, cowtails, wool, and salt. Coarse woollen cloth and narrow serge are almost its only manufactures. It produces no iron, nor fruit, nor spices. The nature of the soil and of the climate prevents the culture of silt, rice, and tobacco, of all which articles there is a great consumption. But the wants of the country will best appear from an account of its trade. In this sketch, however, I propose only to give the outlines, which I will beg leave afterwards to fill up and correct.

The genius of this Government, like that of most of the ancient kingdoms in Hindustan, is favourable to commerce. No duties are levied on goods, and trade is protected and free from exactions. Many foreign merchants, encouraged by these indulgences, or allured by the prospect of gain, have settled in Tibet. The natives of Kashmir, who, like the Jews in Europe, or the Armenians in the Turkish empire, scatter themselves over the eastern kingdoms of Asia, and carry on an extensive traffic between the distant parts of it, have formed establishments at Lhasa and all the principal towns in this country. Their agents, stationed on the coast of Coromandel, in Bengal, Benares, Nepal, and Kashmir, furnish them with the commodities of these different countries, which they dispose of in Tibet, or forward to their associates at Seling, a town on the borders of China.