CHAPTER XIII
MY FIRST MISSION TO BHUTAN
From Gangtak to Tashi-cho-jong, Choice of routes. The Natu-la in bad weather. Deputation in the Chumbi Valley. Entering Bhutan. The Hah-la and Meru-la. Punishment for murder. Leather cannon. Paro. The Penlop’s wives. Paro-jong. Turner’s description. Eden’s description. Dug-gye. Weeping cypress at Chalimaphe. The quarrel between Ugyen Wang-chuk and Aloo Dorji. Murder of Poonakha Jongpen. Tashi-cho-jong.
One of the most pleasant duties I had to perform while holding my appointment was when the Government of India deputed me to proceed to Bhutan in 1905 to present the insignia of a Knight Commander of the Indian Empire to my friend Ugyen Wang-chuk, the Tongsa Penlop, as a recognition of the services he had rendered to the British Government at the time of our mission to Lhasa. Major F. W. Rennick accompanied me to represent the Intelligence Department, and Mr. A. W. Paul, C.I.E., late of the I.C.S., came out from England in response to the Tongsa’s invitation. I also took, as my confidential clerk, Rai Lobzang Chöden Sahib and an escort of twenty-four sepoys, with some pipes and drums of the 40th Pathans under Subadar Jehandad Khan, two Sikhim Pioneers and two Sikhim police, in addition to the usual following of chupprassies and servants.
This was the first occasion for forty years that an Englishman had visited Bhutan, and was a sharp contrast to the visit paid by Eden in 1864, when every obstacle
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