216 TUML00NG. Chap. XXVI. 



council the principal Lamas and Kajees of the country, 

 who, to a man, repudiated the proceedings, and refused to 

 attend. Our captors were extremely anxious to induce us 

 to write letters to Dorjiling, and sent spies of all kinds to 

 offer us facilities for secret correspondence. The simplicity 

 and clumsiness with which these artifices were attempted 

 would have been ludicrous under other circumstances ; 

 while the threat of murdering Campbell only alarmed us, 

 inasmuch as it came from people too stupid to be trusted. 

 We made out that all Sikkim people were excluded from 

 Dorjiling, and the Amlah consequently could not conceal 

 their anxiety to know what had befallen their letters to 

 government. 



Meanwhile we were but scantily fed, and our imprisoned 

 coolies got nothing at all. Our guards were supplied with 

 a handful of rice or meal as the day's allowance ; they were 

 consequently grumbling,* and were daily reduced in 

 number. The supplies of rice from the Terai, beyond 

 Dorjiling, were cut off by the interruption of communica- 

 tion, and the authorities evidently could not hold us long 

 at this rate : we sent up complaints, but of course received 

 no answer. 



The Dewan arrived in the afternoon in great state, 

 carried in an English chair given him by Campbell some 

 years before, habited in a blue silk cloak lined with lamb- 

 skin, and wearing an enormous straw hat with a red tassel, 



* The Rajah has no standing army ; not even a body-guard, and these men 

 were summoned to Tumloong before our arrival : they had no arms and received 

 no pay, but were fed when called out on duty. There is no store for grain, 

 no bazaar or market, in any part of the country, each family growing little 

 enough for its own wants and no more ; consequently Sikkim could not stand 

 on the defensive for a week. The Rajah receives his supply of grain in annual 

 contributions from the peasantry, who thus pay a rent in kind, which varies 

 from little to nothing, according to the year, &c. He had also property of 

 his own in the Terai, but the slender proceeds only enabled him to trade 

 with Tibet for tea, &c. 



