Soon afterwards, as I sat at my tent-door, looking along the narrow
bushy ridge that winds up the mountain, I saw twenty or thirty men
rapidly descending the rocky path: they were Lepchas, with blue and
white striped garments, bows and quivers, and with their long knives
gleaming in the sun: they seemed to be following a figure in red Lama
costume, with a scarlet silk handkerchief wound round his head, its
ends streaming behind him. Though expecting this apparition to prove
the renowned Kajee and his myrmidons, coming to put a sudden
termination to my progress, I could not help admiring the exceeding
picturesqueness of the scenery and party. My fears were soon
dissipated by my men joyfully shouting, "The Tchebu Lama! the Tchebu
Lama!" and I soon recognised the rosy face and twinkling eyes of my
friend of Bhomsong, the only man of intelligence about the Rajah's
court, and the one whose services as Vakeel were particularly wanted
at Dorjiling.

He told me that the Lassoo Kajee had orders (from whom, he would not
say) to stop my progress, but that I should proceed nevertheless, and
that there was no objection to my doing so; and he despatched a
messenger to the Rajah, announcing my progress, and requesting him to
send me a guide, and to grant me every facility, asserting that he
had all along fully intended doing so.

On the following morning the Lama proceeded to Dorjiling, and I
continued the ascent of Tendong, sending my men round the shoulder to
Temi in the Teesta valley, where I proposed to pass the night.
The road rapidly ascends by a narrow winding path, covered with a
loose forest of oaks, rhododendrons, and various shrubs, not found at
equal elevations on the wetter Dorjiling ranges: amongst, them the