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A great party of Sikkim Bhoteeas had assembled here, all strangers to me: I certainly thought the concourse unusually large, and the previous conduct to Campbell, strange, rude, and quite unintelligible, especially before the Tibetans.
The Tupgain Lama having only spiritual authority, and being bound to celibacy, the temporal authority devolved on the second son, who was heir apparent of Sikkim; he, however, having died, an illegitimate son of the Rajah was favoured by the Dewan as heir apparent. The bride was brought from Tibet, and the marriage party were feasted for eighteen days at the Rajah's expense.
These families repair yearly to Palung, with their flocks, herds, and tents, paying tribute to the Sikkim Rajah for the privilege: they arrive in June and leave in September. Both men and women were indescribably filthy; as they never wash, their faces were perfectly black with smoke and exposure, and the women's with a pigment of grease as a protection from the wind.
The yak goes nine months with calf, and drops one every two years, bearing altogetber ten or twelve: the common Sikkim cow of lower elevations, at Dorjiling invariably goes from nine and a half to ten months, and calves annually: ponies go eleven months, and foal nearly every year. At Dorjiling the sheep drop a lamb once in the season. The Tibetan mutton we generally found dry and stringy.
That six or seven different tribes, without any feudal system or coercive head, with different languages and customs, should dwell in close proximity and in peace and unity, within the confined territory of Sikkim, even for a limited period, is an anomaly; the more especially when it is considered that except for a tincture of the Boodhist religion among some few of the people, they are all but savages, as low in the scale of intellect as the New Zealander or the Tahitian, and beneath those races in ingenuity and skill as craftsmen.
Another pest is a small midge, or sand-fly, which causes intolerable itching, and subsequent irritation, and is in this respect the most insufferable torment in Sikkim; the minutest rent in one's clothes is detected by the acute senses of this insatiable bloodsucker, which is itself so small as to be barely visible without a microscope.
Whether an invasion of Sikkim was either advisable or called for, was a matter in which I had no concern: nor do I offer an opinion as to the impregnability of the country if it were defended by natives otherwise a match for a British force, and having the advantage of position.
Hoar-frost formed copiously in the night, and though above the sun's rays were very powerful, they did not reach this spot till 7.30 a.m., the frost remaining in the shade till nearly 9 a.m.; and this on plantains, and other inhabitants of hot-houses in England. Hence I ascended to Yoksun, one of the most curious and picturesque spots in Sikkim, and the last inhabited place towards Kinchinjunga.
And the Sikkim Himalaya, from the plains to the mountains, provides such a rich variety of plant and insect life, such a variety of climate and of country, and so plentiful a supply of water, that birds of the widest difference of requirements can here be provided with their needs.
Mangos are brought from the plains, for though wild in Sikkim, the cultivated kinds do not thrive; I have seen the pine-apple plant, but I never met with good fruit on it. A singular and almost total absence of the light, and of the direct rays of the sun in the ripening season, is the cause of this dearth of fruit.
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