Dec. 1849. CONFERENCE WITH GANGTOK KAJEE. 229 



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.* 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 Ilajah ; it 

 was from the Governor- General at Bombay, and had 

 been sent across the country by special messengers : 



* 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. 



