After journeying about eight miles, we entered a neat, well built town, which contained, as we were informed, about fifteen thousand inhabitants. The Brahmin informed me, that in a time of religious fervour, about two centuries ago, a charter was granted to the founder of a new sect, the Volbins, who had chanced to make converts of some of the leading men in Morosofia, authorising him and his followers to purchase this valley of the hunting tribe to whom it belonged, and to govern themselves by their own laws. They found no difficulty in making the purchase. It was then used as a mere hunting ground, no one liking to settle in a place that seemed shut out from the rest of the world. At first, the new settlers divided the land equally among all the inhabitants, one of their tenets being, that as there was no difference of persons in the next world, there should be no difference in sharing the good things of this. They tried at first to preserve this equality; but finding it impracticable, they abandoned it. It is said that after about thirty years, by reason of a difference in their industry and frugality, and of some families spending less than they made, and some more, the number of land owners was reduced to four hundred, and that fifty of these held one half of the whole; since which time the number of landed proprietors has declined with the population, though not in the same proportion. As the soil is remarkably fertile, the climate healthy, and the people temperate and industrious, they multiplied very rapidly until they reached their present numbers, which have been long stationary, and amount to 150,000, that is, about four hundred to a square mile; of these, more than one half live in towns and villages, containing from one hundred to a thousand houses. They have little or no commerce with any other people, the valley producing every vegetable production, and the mountains every mineral, which they require; and in fact, they have no foreign intercourse whatever, except when they visit, or are visited from curiosity. Though they have been occasionally bullied and threatened by lawless and overbearing neighbours; yet, as they can be approached by only a single gorge in the mountain, which is always well garrisoned, (and they present no sufficient object to ambition, to compensate for the scandal of invading so inoffensive and virtuous a people,) they have never yet been engaged in war. I felt very anxious to know how it was that their numbers did not increase, as they were exempt from all pestilential diseases, and live in such abundance, that a beggar by trade has never been known among them, and are remarkable for their moral habits. "Let us inquire at the fountain-head," said the Brahmin; and we went to see the chief magistrate, who received us in a style of unaffected frankness, which in a moment put us at our ease. After we had explained to him who we were, and answered such inquiries as he chose to make: