[95] On the top of the ridge above Broom, a tall stone is erected by the side of the path, covered with private marks, indicating the height of various individuals who are accustomed to measure themselves thus; there was but one mark above 5 feet 7 inches, and that was 6 inches higher. It turned out to be Campbell’s, who had passed a few days before, and was thus proved to top the natives of Sikkim by a long way.
Dr. Campbell’s tent was pitched in an orange-grove, occupying a flat on the west bank of the Teesta, close to a small enclosure of pine-apples, with a pomegranate tree in the middle. The valley is very narrow, and the vegetation wholly tropical, consisting of two species of oak, several palms, rattan-cane (screw-pine), Pandanus, tall grasses, and all the natives of dense hot jungles. The river is a grand feature, broad, rocky, deep, swift, and broken by enormous boulders of rock; its waters were of a pale opal green, probably from the materials of the soft micaceous rocks through which it flows.
A cane bridge crosses it,[[96]] but had been cut away (in feigned distrust of us), and the long canes were streaming from their attachments on either shore down the stream, and a triangular raft of bamboo was plying instead, drawn to and fro by means of a strong cane.
[96] Whence the name of Bhomsong Samdong, the latter word meaning bridge.
Soon after arriving I received a present from the Rajah, consisting of a brick of Tibet tea, eighty pounds of rancid yak butter, in large squares, done up in yak-hair cloth, three loads of rice, and one of Murwa for beer; rolls of bread,[[97]] fowls, eggs, dried plums, apricots, jujubes, currants, and Sultana raisins, the latter fruits purchased at Lhassa, but imported thither from western Tibet; also some trays of coarse milk-white crystallised salt, as dug in Tibet.
[97] These rolls, or rather, sticks of bread, are made in Tibet, of fine wheaten flour, and keep for a long time: they are sweet and good, but very dirtily prepared.
In the evening we were visited by the Dewan, the head and front of all our Sikkim difficulties, whose influence was paramount with the Rajah, owing to the age and infirmities of the latter, and his devotion to religion, which absorbed all his time and thoughts. The Dewan was a good-looking Tibetan, very robust, fair, muscular and well fleshed; he had a very broad Tartar face, quite free of hair; a small and beautifully formed mouth and chin, very broad cheekbones, and a low, contracted forehead: his manners were courteous and polite, but evidently affected, in assumption of better breeding than he could in reality lay claim to. The Rajah himself was a Tibetan of just respectable extraction, a native of the Sokpo province, north of Lhassa: his Dewan was related to one of his wives, and I believe a Lhassan by birth as well as extraction, having probably also Kashmir blood in him.[[98]] Though minister, he was neither financier nor politician, but a mere plunderer of Sikkim, introducing his relations, and those whom he calls so, into the best estates in the country, and trading in great and small wares, from a Tibet pony to a tobacco pipe, wholesale and retail. Neither he nor the Rajah are considered worthy of notice by the best Tibet families or priests, or by the Chinese commissioners settled in Lhassa and Jigatzi. The latter regard Sikkim as virtually English, and are contented with knowing that its ruler has no army, and with believing that its protectors, the English, could not march an army across the Himalaya if they would.
[98] The Tibetans court promiscuous intercourse between their families and the Kashmir merchants who traverse their country.
The Dewan, trading in wares which we could supply better and cheaper, naturally regarded us with repugnance, and did everything in his power to thwart Dr. Campbell’s attempts to open a friendly communication between the Sikkim and English governments. The Rajah owed everything to us, and was, I believe, really grateful; but he was a mere cipher in the hands of his minister. The priests again, while rejoicing in our proximity, were apathetic, and dreaded the more active Dewan; and the people had long given evidence of their confidence in the English. Under these circumstances it was in the hope of gaining the Rajah’s own ear, and representing to him the advantages of promoting an intercourse with us, and the danger of continuing to violate the terms of our treaty, that Dr. Campbell had been authorised by government to seek an interview with His Highness. At present our relations were singularly infelicitous. There was no agent on the Sikkim Rajah’s part to conduct business at Dorjiling, and the Dewan insisted on sending a creature of his own, who had before been dismissed for insolence. Malefactors who escaped into Sikkim were protected, and our police interrupted in the discharge of their duties; slavery was practised; and government communications were detained for weeks and months under false pretences.
In his interviews with us the Dewan appeared to advantage: he was fond of horses and shooting, and prided himself on his hospitality. We gained much information from many conversations with him, during which politics were never touched upon. Our queries naturally referred to Tibet and its geography, especially its great feature the Yarou Tsampoo river; this he assured us was the Burrampooter of Assam, and that no one doubted it in that country. Lhassa he described as a city in the bottom of a flat-floored valley, surrounded by lofty snowy mountains: neither grapes, tea, silk, or cotton are produced near it, but in the Tartchi province of Tibet, one month’s journey east of Lhassa, rice, and a coarse kind of tea are both grown. Two months’ journey north-east of Lhassa is Siling, the well-known great commercial entrepôt[[99]] in west China; and there coarse silk is produced. All Tibet he described as mountainous, and an inconceivably poor country: there are no plains, save flats in the bottoms of the valleys, and the paths lead over lofty mountains. Sometimes, when the inhabitants are obliged from famine to change their habitations in winter, the old and feeble are frozen to death, standing and resting their chins on their staves; remaining as pillars of ice, to fall only when the thaw of the ensuing spring commences.