coupled with earnest entreaties that Campbell would resume his
position at Dorjiling; and on the following day forty coolies
mustered to arrange the baggage. Before we left, the Ranee sent three
rupees to buy a yard of chale and some gloves, accompanying them
with a present of white silk, etc., for Mrs. Campbell, to whom the
commission was intrusted: a singular instance of the _insouciant_
simplicity of these odd people.

The 9th of December was a splendid and hot day, one of the very few
we had had during our captivity. We left at noon, descending the hill
through an enormous crowd of people, who brought farewell presents,
all wishing us well. We were still under escort as prisoners of the
Dewan, who was coolly marching a troop of forty unloaded mules and
ponies, and double that number of men's loads of merchandize,
purchased during the summer in Tibet, to trade with at Dorjiling and
the Titalya fair! His impudence or stupidity was thus quite
inexplicable; treating us as prisoners, ignoring every demand of the
authorities at Dorjiling, of the Supreme Council of Calcutta, and of
the Governor-General himself; and at the same time acting as if he
were to enter the British territories on the most friendly and
advantageous footing for himself and his property, and incurring so
great an expense in all this as to prove that he was in earnest in
thinking so.

Tchebu Lama accompanied us, but we were not allowed to converse with
him. We halted at the bottom of the valley, where the Dewan invited
us to partake of tea; from this place he gave us mules* [The Tibet
mules are often as fine as the Spanish: I rode one which had
performed a journey from Choombi to Lhassa in fifteen days, with a
man and load.] or ponies to ride, and we ascended to Yankoong, a