INTRODUCTION. m 



advisers were drawn from Tibetan monasteries. In course of time this 

 connection grew to be closer, and the last three Rajas have married 

 Tibetan wives, and have held landed property and owned herds of 

 cattle in Tibet. Such marriages introduced a new and important 

 factor into Sikhim politics. Women brought up in the dry keen air 

 of Tibet could not stand the moist warmth of the Sikhim hills, 

 drenched by the immoderate rainfall which prevails on the southern 

 slopes of the Eastern Himalayas. Their influence, coupled with 

 the Tibetan proclivities of their husbands, promoted by the Nepalese 

 invasion of the country, induced the Rajas to transfer the head-quarters 

 of their Government to the valley of Chumbi, one march to the 

 Tibetan side of the Jelap pass. The prolonged residence of the chief 

 in Tibetan territory had the worst effect on the internal administration 

 of the State. Abuses of all kinds sprung up, while redress was hard 

 to obtain. Lepcha interests were neglected, and Chumbi became the 

 Hanover of Sikhim. 



Meanwhile a still greater Power was being compelled, in spite of 

 itself, to enter the field of East Himalayan politics. Already for thirty 

 years the bigoted and warlike Hindus of Nepal had been harrying 

 their peaceful Buddhist neighbours with cattle-lifting and slave- 

 taking incursions. Before the year 1814 they had conquered and 

 annexed the Terai or lower hills, lying between the Mechi and 

 Tista rivers, and now covered by the valuable tea-gardens of the 



Darjeeling Terai. But for our intervention they 

 British intervention, ^vould probably have permanently turned the whole 



of Sikhim and the hills south and west of the Tista 

 into a province of Nepal. Peace had to be kept on the frontier, and 

 the Government of India was the only Power willing or able to keep it. 

 At the close, therefore, of the Goorkha war in 1817 we restored the 

 Terai to Sikliim, and took such guarantees as were possible against 

 a renewal of hostilities on our border. By the treaty of Titalya we 

 assumed the position of lords paramount of Sikhim, and our title to 

 exercise a predominant influence in that State has remained undis- 

 puted for seventy years, until recently challenged by the monastic 

 party in Tibet. 



Following our traditional policy, we meddled as little as possible 

 in the aff'airs of Sikhim, and no further negotiations took place until 

 1834, when certain Lepcha malcontents, who had sought refuge in 

 Nepal, made a raid on the tract ceded in 1817. Under pressure from 

 us the refugees returned to Nepal, and the opportunity was taken by 



the Government of India to procure from the 

 liu^lm °^ ^*'^^^^' ^^i^ ^^ Sikhim the cession of the hill-station of 

 ' Darjeeling and a small tract immediately surround- 



ing it. Fifteen years afterwards Dr. Campbell, the Superintendent of 



