About Dusk We Embarked In Two Large Boats With Rajoo, The Cook, And The
Bhistie, The Other Servants Remaining Behind, Much To Their Delight,
To Take Charge Of Spare Baggage, &C. Left In The Bungalow.
One of
the Maharajah's army also accompanied us, a rough-and-ready-looking
sepoy irregular, whose duty it was to ferret out supplies and coolies,
&c. during our march, and at the same time, perhaps, to keep a watch
over our own movements and desperate designs.
Passed the night under
gauze fortifications, the disappointed mosquitoes buzzing about
outside in myriads, and striving hard to take a fond farewell of
their much-loved foreign guests.
By strange sounds from the direction of my companion's quarters,
as if of smacking of hands, &c., I was led to infer that they had
partially succeeded in bidding him good-bye. I, however, luckily
escaped without receiving even as much as a deputation from the enemy,
and slept in happy unconsciousness of their vicinity.
Little Thibet.
JULY 27. - About six o'clock this morning we found ourselves at
anchor under the mountains at the northern extremity of the lake,
and at the mouth of a dashing river of ice-cold water, into which we
lost no time in plunging. On mustering our forces after breakfast,
we found that our possessions required fourteen coolies for their
transport. Our own immediate effects took four, viz. bedding two,
guns one, and clothes, &c. one; the kitchen required four more;
tent one, charpoys one, servants' reserve supply of food one,
brandy, one, plank for table and tent poles one, and last though
not least, the twelve ducks took up the services of the fourteenth
all to themselves. The rest of our train consisted of the faithful
Rajoo, who came entirely at his own request to see a new country,
the two servants, the sepoy, and the coolie's mate, who was to act as
guide, carry small matters, and make himself generally useful. After
a most affectionate parting with our boatmen, Messrs. Suttarah,
Ramzan, Guffard, and Co., we started on our new travels at about ten
A.M. under a broiling sun. After several halts under shady chestnuts,
groves of mulberry, &c., and passing by a gentle ascent through a
lovely country, we came to our first encamping ground, at Kungur, and
pitched our tent under a chestnut grove, considerably hot and tired by
our first march, after all the ease and comparative idleness we had of
late been enjoying in the valley. Here we saw the first of the system
of extortion which goes on among the government authorities and the
people; for after the paymaster to the forces had settled with the
seven coolies who were not in our permanent employ, not being able
to take all as we had originally intended, they assembled round us,
and complained most dolefully of the smallness of their pay. The
sepoy, who appeared a most pugnacious customer, cuffed some of them,
and made desperate flourishes at others with a big stick, and seemed
altogether so anxious to prevent, as he said, the "cherishers of
the poor," from being inconvenienced by the "scum of the earth,"
that we suspected something wrong, and on inquiring, ascertained,
that out of the amount due to the seven, viz.
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