Himalayan Journals, vol 2 by J. D. Hooker (great reads TXT) 📖

Tikbotang (alt. 3,763 feet), and, on the 11th at Gangtok

Sampoo, a few miles lower down the same valley.

We were now in the Soubahship of the Gangtok Kajee; a member of the oldest and most wealthy family in Sikkim; he had from the first

repudiated the late acts of the Amlah, in which his brother had taken part, and had always been hostile to the Dewan. The latter conducted himself with disagreeable familiarity towards us, and hauteur

towards the people; he was preceded by immense kettle-drums, carried on men's backs, and great hand-bells, which were beaten and rung on approaching villages; on which occasions he changed his dress of

sky-blue for yellow silk robes worked with Chinese dragons, to the

indignation of Tchebu Lama, an amber robe in polite Tibetan society being sacred to royalty and the Lamas. We everywhere perceived

unequivocal symptoms of the dislike with which he was regarded.

Cattle were driven away, villages deserted, and no one came to pay

respects, or bring presents, except the Kajees, who were ordered to attend, and his elder brother, for whom he had usurped an estate

near Gangtok.

On the 13th, he marched us a few miles, and then halted for a day at Serriomsa (alt. 2,820 feet), at the bottom of a hot valley full of

irrigated rice-crops and plantain and orange-groves. Here the Gangtok Kajee waited on us with a handsome present, and informed us privately of his cordial hatred of the "upstart Dewan," and hopes for his

overthrow; a demonstration of which we took no notice.* [Nothing

would have been easier than for the Gangtok Kajee, or any other

respectable man in Sikkim, to have overthrown the Dewan and his

party; but these people are intolerably apathetic, and prefer being tyrannized over to the trouble of shaking off the yoke.] The Dewan's brother (one of the Amlah) also sent a large present, but was ashamed to appear. Another letter reached the Dewan here, directed to the

Rajah; it was from the Governor-General at Bombay, and had been sent across the country by special messengers: it demanded our instant

release, or his Raj would be forfeited; and declared that if a hair of our heads were touched, his life should be the penalty.

The Rajah was also incessantly urging the Dewan to hasten us onwards as free men to Dorjiling, but the latter took all remonstrances with assumed coolness, exercised his ponies, played at bow and arrow,

intruded on us at mealtimes to be invited to partake, and loitered on the road, changing garments and hats, which he pestered us to buy.

Nevertheless, be was evidently becoming daily more nervous

and agitated.

From the Rungmi valley we crossed on the 14th southward to that of

Runniok, and descended to Dikkeeling, a large village of Dhurma

Bhoteeas (Bhotanese), which is much the most populous, industrious, and at the same time turbulent, in Sikkim. It is 4,950 feet above the sea, and occupies many broad cultivated spurs facing the south.

This district once belonged to Bhotan, and was ceded to the Sikkim

Rajah by the Paro Pilo,* [The temporal sovereign, in

contra-distinction to the Dhurma Rajah, or spiritual sovereign of

Bhotan.] in consideration of some military services, rendered by the former in driving off the Tibetans, who had usurped it for the

authorities of Lhassa. Since then the Sikkim and Bhotan people have repeatedly fallen out, and Dikkeeling has become a refuge for runaway Bhotanese, and kidnapping is constantly practised on this frontier.

The Dewan halted us here for three days, for no assigned cause.

On the 16th, letters arrived, including a most kind and encouraging one from Mr. Lushington, who had taken charge of Campbell's office at Dorjiling. Immediately after arriving, the messenger was seized with violent vomitings and gripings: we could not help suspecting poison, especially as we were now amongst adherents of the Dewan, and the

Bhotanese are notorious for this crime. Only one means suggested

itself for proving this, and with Campbell's permission I sent my

compliments to the Dewan, with a request for one of his hunting dogs to eat the vomit. It was sent at once, and performed its duty without any ill effects. I must confess to having felt a malicious pleasure in the opportunity thus afforded of showing our jailor how little we trusted him; feeling indignant at the idea that he should suppose he was making any way in our good opinion by his familiarities, which we were not in circumstances to resist.

The crafty fellow, however, outwitted me by inviting us to dine with him the same day, and putting our stomachs and noses to a severe

test. Our dinner was served in Chinese fashion, but most of the

luxuries, such as beche-de-mer, were very old and bad. We ate,

sometimes with chop-sticks, and at others with Tibetan spoons,

knives, and two-pronged forks. After the usual amount of messes

served in oil and salt water, sweets were brought, and a strong

spirit. Thoba-sing, our filthy, cross-eyed spy, was waiter, and

brought in every little dish with both hands, and raised it to his

greasy forehead, making a sort of half bow previous to depositing it before us. Sometimes he undertook to praise its contents, always

adding, that in Tibet none but very great men indeed partook of such sumptuous fare. Thus he tried to please both us and the Dewan, who

conducted himself with pompous hospitality, showing off what he

considered his elegant manners and graces. Our blood boiled within us at being so patronised by the squinting ruffian, whose insolence and ill-will had sorely aggravated the discomforts of our imprisonment.

Not content with giving us what he considered a magnificent dinner

(and it had cost him some trouble), the Dewan produced a little bag from a double-locked escritoire, and took out three dinner-pills,

which he had received as a great favour from the Rimbochay Lama, and which were a sovereign remedy for indigestion and all other ailments; he handed one to each of us, reserving the third for himself.

Campbell refused his; but there appeared no help for me, after my

groundless suspicion of poison, and so I swallowed the pill with the best grace I could. But in truth, it was not poison I dreaded in its contents, so much as being compounded of some very questionable

materials, such as the Rimbochay Lama blesses and dispenses far and wide. To swallow such is a sanctifying work, according to Boodhist

superstition, and I believe there was nothing in the world, save his ponies, to which the Dewan attached a greater value.

To wind up the feast, we had pipes of excellent mild yellow Chinese tobacco called "Tseang," made from Nicotiana rustica, which is

cultivated in East Tibet, and in West China according to MM. Huc and Gabet. It resembles in flavour the finest Syrian tobacco, and is most agreeable when the smoke is passed through the nose. The common

tobacco of India (Nicotiana Tabacum) is much imported into Tibet, where it is called "Tamma," (probably a corruption of the Persian

"Toombac,") and is said to fetch the enormous price of 30 shllings

per lb. at Lhassa, which is sixty times its value in India. Rice at Lhassa, when cheap, sells at 2 shillings for 5 lbs.; it is, as I have elsewhere said, all bought up for rations for the Chinese soldiery.

The Bhotanese are more industrious than the Lepchas, and better

husbandmen; besides having superior crops of all ordinary grains,

they grow cotton, hemp, and flax. The cotton is cleansed here as

elsewhere, with a simple gin. The Lepchas use no spinning wheel, but a spindle and distaff; their loom, which is Tibetan is a very

complicated one framed of bamboo; it is worked by hand, without beam treddle, or shuttle.

On the 18th we were marched, three miles only, to Singdong (alt.

2,116 feet), and on the following day five miles farther, to Katong Ghat (alt. 750 feet), on the Teesta river, which we crossed with

rafts, and camped on the opposite bank, a few miles above the

junction of this river with the Great Rungeet. The water, which is

sea-green in colour, had a temperature of 53.5 degrees at 4 p.m.,

and 51.7 degrees the following morning; its current was very

powerful. The rocks, since leaving Tunlloong, had been generally

micaceous, striking north-west, and dipping north-east. The climate was hot, and the vegetation on the banks tropical; on the hills

around, lemon-bushes ("Kucheala," Lepcha) were abundant, growing

apparently wild.

The Dewan was now getting into a very nervous and depressed state; he was determined to keep up appearances before his followers, but was himself almost servile to us; he caused his men to make a parade of their arms, as if to intimidate us, and in descending narrow gullies we had several times the disagreeable surprise of finding some of his men at a sudden turn, with drawn bows and arrows pointed towards us.

Others gesticulated with their long knives, and made fell swoops at soft plantain-stems; but these artifices were all as shallow as they were contemptible, and a smile at such demonstrations was generally answered with another from the actors.

From Katong we ascended the steep east flank of Tendong or Mount

Ararat, through forests of Sal and long-leaved pine, to Namten (alt.

4,483 feet), where we again halted two days. The Dingpun Tinli lived near and waited on us with a present, which, with all others that

had been brought, Campbell received officially, and transferred to

the authorities at Dorjiling.

The Dewan was thoroughly alarmed at the news here brought in, that

the Rajah's present of yaks, ponies, etc., which had been sent

forward, had been refused at Dorjiling; and equally so at the

clamorous messages which reached him from all quarters, demanding our liberation; and at the desertion of some of his followers, on hearing that large bodies of troops were assembling at Dorjiling. Repudiated by his Rajah and countrymen, and paralysed between his dignity and

his ponies, which he now perceived would not be welcomed at the

station, and which were daily losing flesh, looks, and value in these hot valleys, where there is no grass pasture, he knew not what

olive-branch to hold out to our government, except ourselves, whom he therefore clung to as hostages.

On the 22nd of December he marched us eight miles further, to

Cheadam, on a bold spur 4,653 feet high, overlooking the Great

Rungeet, and facing Dorjiling, from which it was only twenty miles

distant. The white bungalows of our friends gladdened our eyes, while the new barracks erecting for the daily arriving troops struck terror into the Dewan's heart. The six Sepoys* [These Sepoys, besides the

loose red jacket and striped Lepcha kirtle, wore a very curious

national black hat of felt, with broad flaps turned up all round:

this is represented in the right-hand figure. A somewhat similar bat is worn by some classes of Nepal soldiery.] who had marched valiantly beside us for twenty days, carrying the muskets given to the Rajah

the year before by the Governor-General, now lowered their arms, and vowed that if a red coat crossed the Great Rungeet, they would throw down their guns and run away. News arrived that the Bhotan

inhabitants of Dorjiling headed by my bold Sirdar Nimbo, had arranged a night attack for our release; an enterprise to which they were

quite equal, and in which they have had plenty of practice in their own misgoverned country. Watch-fires gleamed amongst the bushes, we were thrust into a doubly-guarded house, and bows and arrows were

ostentatiously levelled so as to rake the doorway, should we attempt to escape. Some of the ponies were sent back to Dikkeeling, though

the Dewan still clung to his merchandise and the feeble hope of

traffic. The confusion increased daily, but though Tchebu Lama looked brisk and