MY FIRST MISSION TO BHUTAN
our Government voluntarily resigned all that had been gained by those long months of hardship and stress, by vast expenditure of money and the loss of valuable lives.
It was instructive, in view of the then disputed question as to whether Chumbi, as the people themselves maintained it ought to be, should be restored to Sikhim, to note the close intimacy that exists between Chumbi and Sikhim. The wealthiest man in the valley was the headman of Pema, whose grandfather and great-grandfather had lived in Gangtak, whither their forefathers had migrated from Chumbi. According to local tradition, Chumbi itself came into the possession of the Sikhim Raja a little more than a hundred years ago as the dower of a Tibetan wife, the people of the valley below Galing paying him no rent, but carrying for him and his amla free. I tried to trace the previous history of the valley, but I could find no one with any knowledge of or interest in the subject.
Next day, after concluding my arrangements, we commenced our journey on the right bank of the Am-mo-chhu as far as Rinchengong. Ugyen Kazi, the Bhutanese agents who was the bearer of the Viceroy’s letter to the Delai Lama in 1903, pointed out the house in which the late Durkey Sirdar used to live, and poured out a repetition of his wrongs; that doubt should have been thrown on the fact that he had delivered his Excellency’s letter to the Delai Lama himself had sunk deep into his heart, and still rankled sorely. “There,” he said, with dramatic action, “lived and flourished my enemy; he maligned me to the Tibetan Government, who denied me access to Lhasa, and, through his Kalimpong friends, to the Indian Government, who doubted my honesty. I was alone with but few friends, and what was I to do? I sent money and presents to the great oracle at Nachung, and told the Shapes [Tibetan Council] at Lhasa that I was an honest man and placed my case and my trust in the gods of my fathers. If I had been dishonest and disloyal to either Government, if I had
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