village 3,867 feet above the sea. On the following day we crossed a
high ridge from the Ryott valley to that of the Rungmi; where we
camped at Tikbotang (alt. 3,763 feet), and, on the 11th at Gangtok
Sampoo, a few miles lower down the same valley.

We were now in the Soubahship of the Gangtok Kajee; a member of the
oldest and most wealthy family in Sikkim; he had from the first
repudiated the late acts of the Amlah, in which his brother had taken
part, and had always been hostile to the Dewan. The latter conducted
himself with disagreeable familiarity towards us, and _hauteur_
towards the people; he was preceded by immense kettle-drums, carried
on men's backs, and great hand-bells, which were beaten and rung on
approaching villages; on which occasions he changed his dress of
sky-blue for yellow silk robes worked with Chinese dragons, to the
indignation of Tchebu Lama, an amber robe in polite Tibetan society
being sacred to royalty and the Lamas. We everywhere perceived
unequivocal symptoms of the dislike with which he was regarded.
Cattle were driven away, villages deserted, and no one came to pay
respects, or bring presents, except the Kajees, who were ordered to
attend, and his elder brother, for whom he had usurped an estate
near Gangtok.

On the 13th, he marched us a few miles, and then halted for a day at
Serriomsa (alt. 2,820 feet), at the bottom of a hot valley full of
irrigated rice-crops and plantain and orange-groves. Here the Gangtok
Kajee waited on us with a handsome present, and informed us privately
of his cordial hatred of the "upstart Dewan," and hopes for his
overthrow; a demonstration of which we took no notice.* [Nothing
would have been easier than for the Gangtok Kajee, or any other
respectable man in Sikkim, to have overthrown the Dewan and his