Indian troops and officers have, fortunately, plenty of experience in rough work of this and every other description. The 32nd Pioneers I had known in the Relief of Chitral in 1895, and they had come almost straight to Sikkim from another frontier expedition, so they could be relied on to be thoroughly up to the duty now expected of them. All I asked Government for, on Mr. White’s recommendation, was that, as they would be moving up from the hot, steamy valleys of Lower Sikkim to a plateau 15,000 feet above sea-level, they should be provided with clothing on the winter scale, with poshtins (sheepskin coats) for sentries, and that special rations should be issued to the men. And for ceremonial effect, which is an item never to be lightly passed over in dealings with Asiatics, I asked that they should take with them their full-dress uniforms, and that twenty-five of them should be mounted on ponies, which could be procured locally.
The Government of India always equips and organizes its expeditions well, and such little arrangements were soon and readily made. And by a piece of foresight on its part, there was on the spot in Sikkim the best practical rough-and-ready supply and transport officer in their service, Major Bretherton, D.S.O., a very old friend of mine in Chitral days, a man of unbounded energy, of infinite resource, and of quite unconquerable optimism, who was drowned in the Brahmaputra within a few days’ march of Lhasa, when we were just about to reap the reward which he, more than any other single man, had put within our reach.
All headquarter arrangements having been made, and my formal instructions received, Mr. White and I left Simla early in June to proceed by Darjiling to the Sikkim frontier. In India such enterprises as we were now embarking on are always started off very quietly, and few outside a limited official circle, and possibly the Russian Government, knew anything at all about our mission. The Government of India is over-sensitive to questions and criticisms in Parliament, and, dependent as it is upon the support of public opinion in England, would be better advised, in my opinion, to take the public in England more into its confidence. But this sensitiveness is intelligible. It must by the necessity of the case be especially difficult to govern India from England, but that task is rendered vastly more difficult by careless questions and criticisms of Members of Parliament. My mission suffered much through the want of support by the British public, and they could hardly have been expected to give it support when it was eventually sprung so suddenly on them, and when they had not had the opportunity of watching affairs gradually growing to a crisis. On the other hand, the Indian Government cannot be expected to expose delicate affairs to the risk of rough, crude handling from men who, though they ultimately control these affairs, are so very little versed in their conduct.
I departed, then, from Simla in the most matter-of-fact manner possible, telling my friends, what was perfectly true, that I was going to see Darjiling. I had therefore no “enthusiastic send-off.” But I had what was better, the heartfelt good wishes of the Viceroy, who has known the conditions under which frontier officers work, and has been more interested in the problems which confront them than any other Viceroy for many a year past. I was also greatly cheered, and subsequently most warmly and continuously supported, by Sir Louis Dane, the Foreign Secretary, whose hospitality I had enjoyed during my stay in Simla.
The journey from Simla to Darjiling by Calcutta was a curious beginning for an expedition to the cold of the Himalayas. The monsoon had not yet broken. The heat of the railway journey was frightful. At Calcutta the temperature was almost the highest on record. And we hurried on, for I was impatient, not only to be out of the heat, but to be getting to work.
At the very outset I looked forward to one experience of, to me, peculiar interest. My life through, mountains have excited in me a special fascination. I was born in the Himalayas, within sight of the Kashmir Mountains; and some inexplicable attraction has drawn me back to them time after time. Now that I was called upon to pierce through the Himalayas to the far country on the hither side, I was to make my start from that spot, from which of all others the most perfect view is to be obtained. Darjiling is now known throughout the world for the magnificence of its mountain scenery, and fortunate it is that such a spot should be now so easily accessible.
As in the earliest dawn I looked out of the train window, to catch the first glimpse of those mighty mountains I had to penetrate, I saw far up in the sky a rose-tinged stretch of seeming cloud. All around was level plain. The air was stifling with the heat of a tropical midsummer. But I knew that pinky streak across the sky could be nothing else than the line of the Himalayas, tinted by the yet unrisen sun. It gave me the first thrill of my new adventure, and I forthwith drank in greedily every new impression.
All around in the plains there was rank, dank, depressing vegetation. Unwholesomeness exuded from the soil. Putrefying pools of water lay about on every side. The whole air was thick with fever. But those high heavenly mountains carried hope. As the train progressed, the lower "hills"—themselves 7,000 or 8,000 feet in height—came into sight. Eventually we reached their base, and left the ordinary train for the little mountain railway which ascends to Darjiling. And now, indeed, were charms on every hand. The little railway winds its way upward through a tropical forest of superb magnificence. The orchids could almost be plucked from the miniature carriages. The luxuriant vegetation nearly met over the train. Immense tree-ferns and wild bananas shot up beneath the overhanging arches of the dripping forest trees. Wreaths and festoons of vine, convolvulus, and begonia stretched from bough to bough. Climbing bauhinias and robinias entwined the trunks and hung like great cables from tree to tree. Bamboos shot up in dense tufts to a height of 100 feet. Refreshing streams dashed foaming down the mountain-side. Glorious waterfalls here and there thundered over steep cliffs. And through all the diminutive train panted its way upward—by zigzags, by spirals, through tunnels, across dizzy bridges, along the sides of cliffs—but only too slowly, for, glorious as was the tropical forest, I thirsted for the sight of Kinchinjunga, which we should get when we at last topped the ridge and reached Darjiling.