266 TO DARJILING: FIRST HIMALAYAN JOURNEY 
companions on such ticklish ground — Hodgson and Mliller, 
Barnes and Campbell. I\Ioreover, had the latter been un- 
injured, Lord Dalhousie forbade his going, lest, being an official, 
he should give a political aspect to the expedition. Dr. Hooker, 
he said, should act on his own responsibility alone. 
To his Mother 
October 13, 1848. 
Everybody is solicitous to go with me ; but I have refused 
all others, because I do not know them well enough to trust 
them ; and having to bear all the onus myself, I should 
think it imprudent to risk taking any companion who might 
not be good-humoured and kind to the Natives, or wilhng 
to put up with insolence from the Rajah's people, should we 
chance to meet wdth them. Lord Dalhousie places great 
confidence in me, and the Rajah of Nepaul no less by granting 
me the first permission that any Englishman has ever received. 
Under all these circumstances, I shall do nothing in the 
peremptory way ; for if anything disagreeable arose, I should 
be involving Lord Dalhousie in the necessity of vindicating 
me and avenging my WTongs, with fifty other troubles from 
which I should reap no advantage. I shall not therefore 
enter Sikkim, unless the Rajah consents. He has already 
committed himself ; and my interference would do no good 
but harm. 
To his Father 
Darjeeling : October 20, 1848. 
I wish you could have been with me this morning and seen 
the motley group of natives arranging with Campbell and 
myself the preliminaries towards my trip to the Snows, of 
various tribes, colors, and callings, such as one rarely sees any 
of, and still more rarely all together. I must, however, begin 
at the beginning and tell you that Campbell has at last 
wrenched a reluctant assent from the Rajah of Sikkim to my 
visiting his snowy mountams. In my last I informed you 
of his having returned a rude and flat refusal to Lord D.'s 
request in my behalf, as also of his having stationed 80 men 
at one pass and 25 at two others to intercept my exit from 
our territories into his, where his instructions were to capture 
my servants but lay no hands on myself ; these Campbell 
