Being refused admittance, I hung about the royal precincts for about four hours, all the time looking for an opportunity to obtain an audience. Ultimately I got a glimpse of the King, who was going out on a hunt seated on a huge elephant. He recognised me, but had just time enough to express his regret and tell me to come to him in the morning; and he was gone! Then my servant again tried to make light of my credulity; but I scolded him into silence.
STRUGGLE WITH A NEPALESE SOLDIER.
At six o’clock on the morning of the 18th, I smuggled myself into the royal enclosure, having chosen an unguarded spot for the purpose. There was such a great number of tents that I in vain tried to locate that intended for royalty. While wandering about I was challenged by an officer. I explained the purpose of my presence there, only to be told that the time for audience had not yet arrived. Eventually the officer ordered a private to see me out of the enclosure. I thought that, once out of the enclosure, I might never have an opportunity of seeing the King, and feigning not to hear the remonstrances of the private, I doggedly held my ground. Finally a guard came and ordered me out. I said that I was there by the order of the King. But my words were only wasted on the sturdy soldier, who forthwith collared me and with a push on my back, as I staggered up, hurled me out of the enclosure, handling me altogether as if I were a little child. Outside the fence I became an object of the laughter of the soldiers and of jeering remarks from the general spectators. Professor of resignation and self-denial though I am, this treatment could not but displease me. But on second thoughts I awoke to the fact of my still lacking the spirit of patience and perseverance. Dead to my surroundings for the time being, I sat in silence on the grass for hours, and in the meanwhile I could not hold back my tears as I thought, if it was hard for me to bear these insults, how great must be the suffering of my Tibetan friends and benefactors, who because of me were even then, as I imagined, undergoing dreadful tortures, having no one to vindicate their innocence for them, and I composed an uta for my consolation:
My suffering surely I with ease must bear
Compared with all the tortures which my friends
Now undergo, for my sake prisoners made,
In distant regions far above the clouds.