SIKHIM AND BHUTAN
and magnificent sights to be imagined, and one certainly not to be surpassed, if equalled, anywhere in the world. The site selected, my real troubles began; trees had to be felled and sawn into scantlings; stone quarried, lime burnt, and, most difficult of all, carpenters and masons imported. I was fortunate in my carpenters, as I had already in my employment a Punjaubi, Moti Ram by name, the best carpenter and carver I have ever come across, and through him I got other excellent men from his native village, but the masons were distinctly bad. They seemed to find it impossible to build a wall plumb or a corner square—faults that impressed themselves on us later on, to our cost, when the time came for paper-hanging. More than that, too, owing to earthquakes, faulty building and heavy rain, parts of the anxiously watched edifice came down, and I began to think my house would never be finished. But, in spite of all difficulties, at Christmas 1890 we were able to move in, about eighteen months after commencing work.
Next came furnishing and finding a staff of servants. Furniture had either to be made on the spot by our Punjaubi carpenters or imported from England; and the neighbouring hill-man caught and trained to service, as, with the exception of one or two old servants, no plains-man could be induced to penetrate into such wilds, where they declared there was always war and where they would certainly be killed. One little lad, whom my wife found carrying loads in the early building days, Diboo by name, eventually became head bearer and major-domo of the establishment, and only left when we went on board at Bombay on our final departure. He and his comrades, Paling, Irung and others, were a merry lot, full of mischief and mad pranks and impossible to take seriously, for, after all, they were only lads of fourteen or fifteen and seemingly much younger when they came to us to learn. They were to be found in all sorts of strange places, climbing the most impossible trees for the sheer joy of seeing what they could
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