the country, and do not scruple to make the fullest
use of the privileges which their position gives them.
The right of demanding transport, both by man and
beast, is rigorously exacted, and it is one of the
absurdities of the whole situation, that a race nominally
and locally dominant, but politically without power or
influence of any kind, should still look down with undisguised
contempt upon the people whom they have
shown themselves wholly unable to manage. The
children of these temporary marriages vary their nationality
with their sex. The girls are Tibetans, the boys
are Chinamen— with a difference ; for special names are
in use to indicate these hybrids.
As one rides through, the old familiar smell of China
usurps the musk and grease and incense of Tibet. The
villages are perhaps more cleanly than those of the
people of the country, and this, to those who know
how filthy Chinese villages can be, will suggest some
notion of the amazing dirt of everything Tibetan.
Beyond the Chinese village, the road runs beside a
few fields, and after about a mile makes a deviation
in the place of the old staired ascent over a jutting
rock. Beyond that again, it crosses a little stream
near a group of chortens and a disused waterwheel.
On the other side of the little side valley, which opens
in here, a stony descent, and two or three hundred
yards of path beside the river, lead directly to the
palace of the Maharajah of Sikkim. Here a wry cupola
still stands above the grey, stone-weighted shingles of
the roof, the only mark of royalty, or even respectability,
amid the warped and drooping beams, the neglected
plaster, and the diseased dogs and pigs that are now
the chief features of this abandoned residence. The
river is crossed by a bridge, to which the prudence of
the expedition added a hand-rail. From the left bank,
as we passed on, we had a good view of the little village
of Eusaka, where a brand-new little gompa still awaited
the images within. At Eusaka, another bridge crosses
the Ammo chu. The main road continues on the eastern
The palace of the Maharajah of Sikkim in the Chumbi Valley. The bridge opposite
shows clearly Tibetan methods of construction.
side, and half a mile further, just where the Kong-bu
chu rattles over its stones into the Ammo chu, the
military camp of Chumbi is placed. It occupies an
alluvial ledge, known in the neighbourhood as Gye-ten,
and faces a wide recessed amphitheatre, where the
pine trees descend in battalions from the higher unwooded
slopes. Hidden away among them, one may