At about eleven o’clock I noticed the Lord Chamberlain passing by me, and I hastened to acquaint him with the plight I was in. His Lordship greatly commiserated me and at once gave orders that I should that minute be taken to the tent of royal reception. After waiting another two hours in the tent, the King was announced—the Prime-Minister-King I should have said.
The King wanted to know what I wished to have from him. The passport, I said. Then he said that that I should certainly have, but that what he had meant was if I was well provided with travelling funds. I replied that I had then with me three hundred rupees. His Highness thought that the amount was not enough for my purpose, and ordered his attendants to give me two hundred rupees. I refused to accept his generosity, saying that I had not come to his country to make money. What was it then that I wanted in reality? I was on the point of making a direct reference to my petition; but that spirit of caution and forbearance which I have already mentioned counselled me once more to bide my time on that score; and I disclosed a part of my desire, that I wished to secure a complete collection of the Samskṛṭ text of the Buḍḍhist Scriptures in existence in Nepāl, offering in return to forward the Japanese edition of the same on my return home. That I should have, he said, and ordered me to present a list of the texts I wanted to the Regent at Kātmāndu, where His Highness was to return in twenty-five days. Henceforward I became a sort of special traveller under royal protection, for a police official was detailed to escort me to Kātmāndu.
[CHAPTER XCVII.]
Once more in Katmandu.
After procuring my passport, escorted by the policeman, I came back to a village called Simla where I had left my carrier and carriage. I found that the carriage and its driver had absconded in my absence: it had been paid for in advance. The policeman wanted to beat my carrier for allowing the driver to abscond; but I interfered. It was then after three in the afternoon, and my route to Khātmāndu lay for eight miles at least through the jungle. I was warned about tigers; but I knew the route, as I was going over it for a second time, and forthwith I set out on the road.
Every two miles, through the eight miles of the jungle, is a large reservoir of drinking water, each reservoir being connected with the one next to it by means of iron ducts. Originally not a drop of water was obtainable in the jungle, and the ducts and reservoirs were built in compliance with the dying wish of the late Queen of Nepāl, who in that way wanted to benefit the travelling public. One reads the origin and history of this benevolent institution engraved on stone tablets, set up on the roadside; the language used on one being Nepālese, on another Tibetan, on the third English, then Hinḍū and Parsī.
Before night came on I arrived at Bichagori, where on the occasion of my former visit I heard a tiger break the midnight silence with his roars. I felt rather lonely on account of the absence of his roaring now, and I made an uta:
The same as once before the moonlight sleeps
On Bichagori fair; but whence is heard
Upon the stream the savage tiger’s roar?