SIKKIM POLITICS 253 
answer, and thus place our Government in the quandary of 
putting up with an insult or sending me with an armed 
force. Such is the Kajah's dread of the Enghsh, that he 
declined receiving an Ambassador, laden with English 
presents ; and w^hen the hot-headed Colonel Lloyd (who 
bargained for Darjeeling) hunted him like a hare to strike 
the bargain in person, he would only meet him with a river 
between. In pushing my own way there is nothing to 
apprehend but the lack of provisions ; the Kajah is too weak 
even to put a traveller in confinement as China does, and 
too much afraid of England ; but he can vv^ithhold supplies 
and frighten your servants. Hence all my wanderings have 
been hitherto only so far distances as I could carry provender 
for myself and the men, and through the least inhabited 
parts of the country. Tow^ards the snow the country is 
more populous, the convents, nunneries, and villages are 
numerous (though small), and the people (Bhoteas) are a 
disagreeable and morose race, immigrants from the East 
into Sikkim. What Lord Dalhousie may do I know not. 
Elliot,^ the Secretary to Government, proposes the using 
' douce violence ' with the Kajah, and insisting that he 
shall behave like a friendly power, but this view cannot be 
supported in Council. My own conviction is that, if the 
Eajah allowed me to visit the snowy Passes, China would 
punish him, not ostensibly but indirectly, and the only 
profitable part of his revenue is derived from Darjeeling 
(which did not yield him 200 rupees when we bought it), 
and a property called Chumbi in Thibet, v/hich he rents 
from China, and which is a fruitful place yielding turnips, 
radishes, and Pine-w^ood ! To proceed vs^ith Oriental crooked 
policy. Sir Herbert Maddock, Governor of Bengal during 
Lord Hardinge's ^ absence, in a fit of spleen assumed that 
the rent which the Eajah received for Darjeeling, 3000 
1 Sir Henry Miers Elliot (1808-53) entered the E.I.C. service in 1826, 
and became Secretary to the Governor-General in Council for Foreign Affairs in 
1847. With Lord Dalhonsie, after the Sikh War, he negotiated the treaty with 
the Sikh chiefs for the settlement of the Punjaub and Gujerat, receiving the 
K.C.B. (1849). His valuable historical work dealt especi-^Uy with India in 
Mohammedan times. 
2 Sir Hemy Hardinge (1785-1856) was the Peninsular veteran and later 
Secretary at War, so highly esteemed by Welling-ton, and was Governor- 
General of India between Ellenborough and Dalhousie (1844-8). At the 
conclusion of the First Sikh War, he was created Viscount Hardinge of 
Lahore. 
