228 RUNG MI VALLEY. Chap. XXVI. 



yard of chale and some gloves, accompanying them with 

 a present of white silk, &c, for Mrs. Campbell, to whom 

 the commission was intrusted : a singular instance of the 

 insouciant simplicity of these odd people. 



The 9th of December was a splendid and hot day, one 

 of the very few we had had during our captivity. We 

 left at noon, descending the hill through an enormous 

 crowd of people, who brought farewell presents, all wishing 

 us well. We were still under escort as prisoners of the 

 Dewan, who was coolly marching a troop of forty unloaded 

 mules and ponies, and double that number of men's loads 

 of merchandize, purchased during the summer in Tibet, to 

 trade with at Dorjiling and the Titalya fair ! His impu- 

 dence or stupidity was thus quite inexplicable ; treating 

 us as prisoners, ignoring every demand of the authorities 

 at Dorjiling, of the Supreme Council of Calcutta, and of 

 the Governor- General himself; and at the same time acting 

 as if he were to enter the British territories on the most 

 friendly and advantageous footing for himself and his 

 property, and incurring so great an expense in all this as 

 to prove that he was in earnest in thinking so. 



Tchebu Lama accompanied us, but we were not allowed 

 to converse with him. We halted at the bottom of the 

 valley, where the Dewan invited us to partake of tea ; from 

 this place he gave us mules * or ponies to ride, and we 

 ascended to Yankoong, a village 3,867 feet above the sea. 

 On the following day we crossed a high ridge from the 

 Ryott valley to that of the Rungmi ; where we camped at 

 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 



The Tibet mules are often as fine as the Spanish : I rode one which had per- 

 formed a journey from Choombi to Lhassa in fifteen days, with a man and load. 





