I don't know in the least what sort of place Sedonchan may be. It rained all the time, some fourteen hours, that I stayed there, and was shrouded in mist. So that if I ever went there again the place would still possess the charm of novelty.
The next morning I found that my pony had shared the lot of most animals along that road and cast a shoe. Farriers don't grow on the wayside in Sikkim, so there was no alternative but to walk up to Gnatong. This involved a climb of about six thousand feet, and then a drop into Gnatong of about one thousand. I overtook the Royal Fusiliers during my walk; they had camped for the night in a puddle called Jaluk which lies half-way between Sedonchan and Gnatong. It was during this march of theirs that I believe the following dialogue was overheard:—
'What-ho, Bill!' said Atkins No. 1. 'What do they mean by calling this something country a something tableland? 'Tain't no something tableland, this 'ere ain't.'
'Garrn,' answered Atkins No. 2, 'it's a something tableland right enough, and this 'ere as we are climbing is the something legs of the something table.'
Fill in the adjectives to taste, or à la Mr. Kipling, and you get the real flavour of the dialogue.
CHAPTER V
MOUNTAIN SICKNESS: GNATONG: WAYSIDE WITTICISMS
Those ailments which are described by the word sickness, joined to a prefix, are of two kinds. Either the prefix is the cause of the disease, as in the case of sea sickness, or the expression is a lucus a non lucendo, as in the case of 'home sickness,' the cause of the sickness being in the latter case the exact contradictory of the prefix. Sometimes the two kinds are combined, as in the case of love sickness, when both love itself and also the lack of love are the simultaneous cause of the disorder.
Mountain sickness, on the other hand, may be of either kind, though not of both at once. I have often had bad mountain sickness of the one kind in the plains of India. Any one who has spent his boyhood scampering over Scotch hills or in similar pastimes is peculiarly prone to this form of the disease towards the end of a hot June. Ten days' leave, or more if possible, is then the only remedy. I had never experienced the other form till I reached Gnatong. I don't exactly know how doctors describe it in diagnosis. I believe, though, that they attribute it in some way to your blood not running up the hill as fast as you do yourself, which results in blood collecting in your toes, which ought to be running about your brain and lungs. Hence giddiness, nausea, headache, loss of appetite, insomnia, difficulty in breathing, and, saddest of all in some cases, an utter inability to enjoy either your drink or your tobacco.