THE EAJAH'S EMBASSY 267 



insisted on being withdrawn, under penalty of dismissing the 

 Kajah's representative (giving the Ambassador his letters, 

 in short), and they were so. Campbell also gave the Kajah 

 eight days to change his mind or have his conduct reported 

 to headquarters with recommendations for condign punish- 

 ment [i.e. by stopping the lease-money of Darjiling and 

 annexing the Eajah's property at the foot of the Hills]. 



Ten days past and no word, when the Eajah's Agent, or 

 Minister if you will (Vakeel is the technical term), was told 

 that should no message arrive before the evening post hour, 

 the letter to Lord D. should be sent. The answer was that 

 advices had arrived to the effect that permission was given, 

 provided Dr. C. wguld pledge his word that this should be 

 my only visit and that a similar request should never be 

 made hereafter. Such conditions were peremptorily rejected 

 as not only derogatory in the highest degree but ensuring me 

 the worst reception. They were again dismissed in disgrace 

 to read their advices again, which they did and returned this 

 morning with unconditional permission. This was followed 

 by a long lecture on the impropriety of their conduct, the 

 danger they had run in offending our Government, and 

 wound up with a comparison of their conduct with that of an 

 independent power, the Eajah of Nepaul, who had sent to 

 Darjeeling an officer and guard to escort me to Nepaul, with 

 instructions to provide me with carriage for my traps and 

 food for my people. 



All this was a curtain affair of course, as it would not have 

 done to let the Goorkhas or others witness our scurvy treat- 

 ment by the Sikkim Eajah's emissaries. The latter no doubt 

 had their instructions from the first to deliver the rude 

 refusal and if that answered the purpose well and good, if not 

 to propose the other alternatives seriatim, and if defeated in 

 all to give in with as bad a grace as might be. 



This hard and disagreeable work over, we all met in the 

 verandah and Salaams passed between myself and the 

 characters to whom I should have liked to introduce you. 

 First there was the Eajah's Vakeel, a portly, tall, and muscu- 

 lar Thibetan, clothed in a long red robe like a Cardinal's, 

 looped across down the middle, and round his neck and down 

 his shoulders hung a rosary. His face was not strongly 

 Chinese at all, stern, grave, and stolid, thoroughly obstinate 



