THE KAJAH'S EMBASSY 267 
insisted on being withdrawn, under penalty of dismissing the 
Kajah's representative (giving the Ambassador his letters, 
in short), and they were so. Campbell also gave the Eajah 
eight days to change his mind or have bis conduct reported 
to headquarters with recommendations for condign punish- 
ment [i.e. by stopping the lease-money of Darjiling and 
annexing the Eajah's property at the foot of the Hills]. 
Ten days past and no word, when the Kajah's Agent, or 
Minister if you will (Vakeel is the technical term), was told 
that should no message arrive before the evening post hour, 
the letter to Lord D. should be sent. The answer was that 
advices had arrived to the effect that permission was given, 
provided Dr. C. would pledge his word that this should be 
my only visit and that a similar request should never be 
made hereafter. Such conditions were peremptorily rejected 
as not only derogatory in the highest degree but ensuring me 
the worst reception. They were again dismissed in disgrace 
to read their advices again, which they did and returned this 
morning with unconditional permission. This was followed 
by a long lecture on the impropriety of their conduct, the 
danger they had run in offending om^ Government, and 
wound up with a comparison of their conduct with that of an 
independent pov^er, the Eajah of^Nepaul, who had sent to 
Darjeeling an officer and guard to escort me to Nepaul, with 
instructions to provide me with carriage for my traps and 
food for my people. 
All this was a curtain affair of course, as it would not have 
done to let the Goorkhas or others witness our scurvy treat- 
ment by the Sikkim Kajah's emissaries. The latter no doubt 
had their instructions from the first to deliver the rude 
refusal and if that answered the purpose well and good, if not 
to propose the other alternatives seriatim, and if defeated in 
all to give in with as bad a grace as might be. 
This hard and disagreeable work over, we all met in the 
verandah and Salaams passed between myself and the 
characters to whom I should have liked to introduce you. 
First there was the Kajah's Vakeel, a portly, tall, and muscu- 
lar Thibetan, clothed in a long red robe like a Cardinal's, 
looped across down the middle, and round his neck and down 
his shoulders hung a rosary. His face was not strongly 
Chinese at all, stern, grave, and stolid, thoroughly obstinate 
