264 TO DABJILING : FIRST HIMALAYAN JOURNEY 
the most advantageous point for research. The field is 
quite untrodden, and I hope to have 2000 species before I 
leave this year. 
Were this impossible, his alternative was to take the journey 
to Assam and the Khasia Hills, which he actually carried out 
in 1850, visiting the tea plantations and looking out for a 
station adapted to the cultivation of guttapercha in Assam, and 
pushing northwards to solve the geographical riddle as to 
whether the Bramaputra was the same stream as the Tsanpo 
of Tibet. 
As a last resort he managed to obtain a route to take him 
in five and a half days' journey to a village on the flanks of 
Kinchinjunga, and at first resolved 
to attempt it with or without permission, in the latter case 
with very small hopes of success, but every inch is botanising 
ground, and one direction is as good as another. ... I 
have no hopes of penetrating into Thibet whatever, but no 
European has ever visited the snow E. of Kumaon and to 
do so here will be a feather in my cap. 
Again and again he reiterates his intention, afterwards 
modified, of trying to reach the snows, even ^dthout per- 
mission, though this would sadly hamper his travelling, for 
his Lepchas would be kidnapped or fined or sold as slaves, 
for showing the way. ' My only requirements,' he reflects, ' are 
mountaineer servants, who have no property in Sikkim to lose.' 
Should all these efforts fail, there was still a chance of 
reaching the snows in Upper Assam the following year, if he 
could time himself to be there in October. 
The general poHtical situation has already been sketched 
out in the letter of June 10, 1848. The present difficulty 
was in putting the right amount of pressure on the dependent 
Rajah who played at independence. Thus (July 19) : 
Campbell and the Govt, are both anxious to forward me 
on ; the Govt, won't order Campbell to send me without the 
Rajah's consent for fear of a war with China ; Campbell 
won't run the risk of committing himself without an order ! 
