CHAPTER XV 
CAPTIVITY AND RELEASE 
During the last weeks at Momay, as has been said, Hooker 
had again been happily relieved of the presence of the Singtam 
Soubah. Finding the situation unendurable, the wretched 
fellow withdrew to lower altitudes, uttering the gloomiest warn- 
ings against cold and famine and Tibetan interference. But 
on September 28 he returned to ask formal leave to go home, 
and brought the welcome new^s that Campbell, accompanied 
by the friendly Tchebu Lama, was on his way north through 
Sikkim, having been sent by the Government to seek a per- 
sonal interview with the Rajah. His object was to cultivate 
better relations with the Sikkim officials, and to enquire into 
the breach of good faith displayed in the discourtesy and 
hindrances offered to Hooker. His authority to enter Sikkim, 
moreover, gave him the opportunity of learning something 
about the country which the treaty bound us to protect, yet 
from w^hich we were so jealously excluded. 
Leaving Momay, therefore, on the last day of September, 
Hooker hurried down to Choongtam at the junction of the 
rivers, and was joined by Campbell on the morning of October 4. 
Then, starting together on the 6th, they repeated and enlarged 
Hooker's previous trips, first up the Lachen to the Kongra 
Lama pass, then actually bluffing an entrance into Tibet, 
and following the upper Lachen round its eastern bend to its 
source in the Cholamo lake. This brought them to the Tibetan 
face of the Donkiah pass, which they crossed (October 19), 
and so completed the round by descending the Lachoong to 
their starting point at Choongtam, October 27. 
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