Part 3 (2/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DEB ZIMPUN'S PRISONERS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”FROM MY DOORSTEP I WATCHED THEM COMING DOWN THE HILL.”]

At first the conversation, consisting of the usual formal compliments full of hyperbole, did not flourish; and the Deb Zimpun's eyes roamed round the apartment as he gazed with interest at my trophies of sport, pictures, photographs, and curios. When the interpreter had finished explaining some extravagant phrase, the Envoy asked eagerly if I had a gramaphone. He was visibly disappointed when I replied in the negative, and said that he had seen one on a previous visit to India and was much interested in it. To console him I took out my cigar-case and offered him a cheroot, which he accepted and smoked with evident pleasure. I asked him if he would like a drink; and the interpreter replied that the Deb Zimpun begged for two whiskies-and-sodas. I wondered if he wanted to consume both at once or thought that my hospitality stopped at one. But when the drinks were brought by my servant, I found that they were wanted by the interpreter himself and his friend the Agent, as the Envoy did not like whisky. I am sure that the old gentleman never asked for them at all; so it was a piece of distinct impertinence on the part of the interpreter, who was only an understrapper. I was struck all the time by the contrast between his casual manner to me, an officer of his own Government, and his servile deference to the Deb Zimpun who treated him as an individual altogether beneath his notice.

When the conversation again languished I produced some luridly coloured j.a.panese prints of the capture of Pekin by the Allied Troops, which I had bought in Tokio after the Boxer War. I thought that they might serve as a useful lesson of the weakness of the Chinese, who endeavour to intrigue against us in Bhutan. These gaudy pictures delighted the Deb Zimpun. He asked to have all the details explained to him and seemed so interested that I made a present of the prints to him to start a Fine Art Gallery with in Punakha when he returned to the capital. This gift quite won his heart. He called into the room the coolies carrying baskets of oranges and brown paper bags of walnuts and presented them to me. The fruit, which was grown in Bhutan, was excellent; and only in Malta have I tasted better oranges. This terminated the visit; the Envoy rose, accepted another cigar, shook hands, and took his departure.

Next day Creagh and I dressed ourselves in full uniform and, accompanied by an escort of sepoys, proceeded up the hill to the Circuit House to return the visit. We were met on the veranda by the Deb Zimpun and, chairs being placed for us, we three sat down. The interpreter was again present, being temporarily attached to the Envoy's suite. I learned that the Deb Zimpun was allowed by our Government the sum of two thousand rupees (about 133) for his expenses while he remained in India. He must have saved most of this money; for I found that he lived chiefly on the contributions, voluntary or otherwise, of the Bhuttias residing in our territory.

A servitor came forward and filled two gla.s.ses with Bhutanese liquor from a bamboo bottle. They were offered us; and my subaltern and I made a heroic attempt to drink the nauseous-looking stuff. But the smell was enough. The taste! A mixture of castor and codliver oil, senna and asafoetida would have been nectar compared with it. We begged to be excused, on the plea that we had been teetotallers all our lives. I then ordered my present to be brought forward. It was a haunch of a _sambhur_ which I had shot two days before. The gift was a great success. The Deb Zimpun's eyes glistened and he showed his teeth, stained red with betel-nut chewing, in a gracious smile. His unkempt followers crowded around us, looked hungrily at the meat, and seemed to calculate whether there was enough to go round. The Maharajah of Bhutan, as a good Buddhist, had recently decreed that for two years no animals were to be slaughtered for food in his country. So this venison was a luxury to them all. Before the excellent impression of our gift could die Creagh and I rose to take our leave and departed hurriedly.

But we were not to escape so easily. Hardly had we reached the Mess on our return when we were informed that the Deb Zimpun had, as a special mark of favour, sent his two best musicians to play for us. So we came out on the veranda and found two swarthy ruffians squatting in the garden, holding silver-banded pipes like flageolets. We seated ourselves and the performance began. I have patiently endured Chinese, j.a.panese, and Indian music, have even listened unmoved to the strains of a German band in London; but the ear-piercing, soul-harrowing noises that these two ruffians produced were too much for me. We wondered, if these were the Envoy's best musicians, what his worst could be like. I hurriedly presented each of them with a rupee and sent them away, more than compensated by the money for their abrupt dismissal.

On the following day we invited the Deb Zimpun to lunch with us in the Mess and instructed our Gurkha cook to do his best, which was not much.

We found that our guest, having visited India before and having accompanied the Tongsa _Penlop_ to Calcutta, was quite expert in the use of a knife and fork, and enjoyed European fare. He was very temperate and refused to touch liquor. But he was not imitated in this by his suite. After lunch he told us that his lama, who was sitting with the rest of his followers in the Mess garden, was anxious to taste whisky, of which he had heard. We invited the priest in and poured him out a stiff five-finger peg of neat Scotch whisky. The holy man smelled it, raised the gla.s.s to his lips, and elevated it until not a drop was left.

He could not apparently make up his mind as to whether he liked the liquor or not. So we offered him another gla.s.s. He accepted it and disposed of it as promptly. We looked at him in astonishment; but it had no effect on him. I told the interpreter to ask him what he thought of whisky.

”I don't like it much; it is too sweet,” replied the lama.

We officers glanced at each other; and the same idea occurred to us all. It happened that some time before we had got a small cask of beer from Calcutta, which, owing to the journey or the heat, had gone very sour and tasted abominably. A large gla.s.s of this delectable beverage was offered to the holy man. As he drained it a beatific smile spread over his saintly but exceedingly dirty face and he put down the empty gla.s.s with a sigh.

”Ah! that is good. That is very good,” he said to the interpreter. ”I would like more.”

So he was given another large tumblerful. Then, absolutely unaffected by his potations, he left the Mess reluctantly. After this experience we kept this beer, while it lasted, for Bhuttia visitors, and found it a popular brand.

After lunch I brought the Deb Zimpun down to shoot on the rifle-range, as he had expressed a wish to that effect through the interpreter. He seemed to understand the mechanism of the Lee-Enfield and made some fair shooting at a moving target at two hundred yards. When my score proved better than his he said laughingly that the rifle was not the weapon with which he was best acquainted, but that he would challenge me one day to a match with bows and arrows. By this time the old man and I had become quite friendly, and we had all taken a liking to him. He had invited me to pay a visit to Bhutan and promised to obtain the permission of the Maharajah for me to enter the country.

Consequently I was not pleased when next day I received a letter from the civil authorities of the district informing me that the Deb Zimpun was occupying the Circuit House without permission, and requesting me to remove him and his retinue to Chunabatti. The Political Officer had asked that he might be allowed to reside in it; but, as on a previous occasion he and his followers had done so and left it in an absolutely uninhabitable state, this permission was now refused. The letter stated that it had cost two hundred rupees to clean the house and make it fit for European occupation again. I thought that this was but a small sum, after all, compared with the two thousand the Government were already expending on him. And to turn the Envoy of a friendly State out of the house he was occupying in all good faith seemed an insulting course. If he refused to vacate it peaceably, I presume I was expected to use force, which would probably result in bloodshed. As to the issue there could be no doubt, as the swords and bows of his followers would be poor things to oppose to our rifles. But it seemed to me that this would be giving rather too warm a reception to an official visitor and guest of the Government of India. So I refused to comply with the wishes of the civil authorities, much to the relief of the Political Officer when he arrived and was informed of the matter. He told me that had I acted otherwise it would have given dire offence in Bhutan just at a time when our Government were particularly anxious to be on good terms with the Bhutanese. I only understood what he meant when, more than a year afterwards, I heard of the signing of the treaty with the Maharajah, which placed the foreign affairs of the country under our control.

But, unfortunately, the Agent had received the same instructions as I; and, to avoid trouble, he induced the Deb Zimpun to go to Chunabatti and reside in his home. The Envoy was very displeased at having to leave the Circuit House. I offered to place the empty bungalow, known as the Married Officers' Quarters, at his disposal; but the old gentleman, though very grateful and thanking me warmly, declined, as he did not want to make another move.

The day after our luncheon-party to the Deb Zimpun a detachment of native police came from Alipur Duar escorting a train of coolies carrying wooden boxes which contained the fifty thousand rupees of the subsidy. These were handed over to me; and I placed them in our guard-room under a special sentry. Lastly the Political Officer, Mr Bell, arrived by train from Darjeeling, which is three days' ride from Gantok. He was accompanied by a portly Sikkimese head clerk in wadded Chinese silk coat and gown, another clerk and a couple of pig-tailed Sikkimese soldiers in striped petticoats and straw hats like inverted flower-pots ornamented with a long peac.o.c.k feather.

On the day after his arrival the Durbar was held. On the parade ground a few of our tents were pitched to form an open-air reception hall. A Guard of Honour of two native officers and a hundred sepoys in their full-dress uniform of red tunics, blue trousers and white spats, was drawn up near it; and the boxes of treasure were brought down and deposited on the ground beside the tents. The only outside visitors were the nearest civil official, the Subdivisional Officer of Alipur Duar, and his wife and children; the three British officers and the native officers not required with the Guard joined them in the tents. Mr Bell, wearing his political uniform, descended on to the parade ground from my bungalow and was received with a salute by the Guard of Honour. Then to the beating of tom-toms and the wild strains of barbaric music a double file of Bhuttias advanced across the parade ground escorting the Envoy, who was riding a mule. We hardly recognised our old friend. He was magnificently garbed for the occasion in a very voluminous robe of red silk embroidered with Chinese symbols in gold, and wore a gold-edged cap in shape something like a papal tiara. At the tail of the procession came a number of coolies carrying baskets of oranges and packages wrapped up in paper.

In front of the tents the Envoy dismounted. The Political Officer came forward to shake hands with him; and the Deb Zimpun threw a white silk scarf around his neck. This scarf is called the _Khatag_ and is the invariable Tibetan and Bhutanese accompaniment of a reception. It is also sent with important official letters. Bell now presented each of us formally to the Envoy, who shook hands solemnly and hung us with scarves. The scene in its picturesque setting of mountains and jungle was a striking one. The Political Officer in his trim uniform and the British officers in their scarlet tunics were outshone by the gaudier garbs of the Asiatics. The Deb Zimpun's flowing red robe, the head clerk in his flowered black silk Chinese garb, the Sikkimese soldiers in their bright garments and the Bhutanese in their kimonos, made a blaze of varied hues. Along one side of the ground was the scarlet and blue line of the Guard of Honour, the yellow and gold _puggris_ or turbans of the native officers and the gold-threaded c.u.mmerbunds, or waist-sashes, of the sepoys s.h.i.+ning in the brilliant sun. Above the Guard the slope and wall of the fort were crowded with the other men of the detachment in white undress, mingled with native followers in brighter colours. Down the other side of the parade ground was a long line of Bhuttia men, women, and children.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DURBAR IN BUXA.]

When we were seated the Deb Zimpun produced a doc.u.ment accrediting him as the duly appointed envoy and representative of the Bhutan Government to receive the subsidy. This having been perused by the Political Officer and his head clerk and the official seals inspected, the boxes of money were formally handed over. The usual procedure was to have one of them opened and the contents counted, but on this occasion the Deb Zimpun accepted them as correct and ordered his escort to take charge of them. They were hoisted on the backs of porters who took them off to Chunabatti. Then coolies came forward with the Envoy's basket of oranges and the packages, which we found to contain cheap native blankets worth a couple of s.h.i.+llings each. Oranges and blankets were given to each of us. But as the Government of India has made a strict rule that no civil or military officer in its service is to accept a present from natives, the blankets were taken charge of by Bell's clerks to be sold afterwards and the proceeds credited to Government. We were allowed to keep the oranges. This proceeding terminated the Durbar.

As the officers of the detachment had invited the visitors to lunch, we now adjourned to the Mess. Although our guests consisted only of the Envoy, Bell, the Subdivisional Officer, Mr Ainslie, and his wife and two children, our resources were sorely strained to provide enough furniture for them. The doctor had to sit on a box. The head clerk acted as interpreter and stood behind the Political Officer's chair. A special shooting-party having descended to the jungle the previous day to replenish the larder, the menu was almost luxurious.

After luncheon the Ainslies departed to Santrabari, where they were encamped, having declined our hospitality in Buxa. As Bell was desirous of entertaining the Deb Zimpun himself, he had arranged a dinner to him and us in the forest officer's empty bungalow that evening. So it devolved on me to keep our old gentleman amused until dinner-time, while the Political Officer wrote his despatches. I took our guest down to the rifle-range and kept him busy there till sunset. Then we had to go to my house, where I tried to entertain him by showing him old copies of English ill.u.s.trated journals. But these require a deal of explanation to the untutored Oriental, who cannot understand the portraits of the favourites of the stage in the scanty costumes in which they are frequently photographed. And I was distinctly embarra.s.sed by some of the Deb Zimpun's questions.

At dinner-time Bell preceded us from my bungalow, where he was staying, and was ready to receive us on the veranda of the forest officer's house when, escorted by servants carrying lanterns, we toiled up the steep path to it. Dinner was laid in the long, draughty centre room in the rambling wooden edifice; and as the night was cold the apartment was warmed by an iron stove. The furniture was scantier and worse than in the Mess. When we sat down to table the Deb Zimpun's rickety chair collapsed under his weight and sent him sprawling on the floor. It was an undignified opening to our official banquet. The old man presented a ludicrous spectacle as he lay entangled in his red silk robe with the gold-trimmed papal cap tilted over his eye; but we rushed to help him up and controlled our countenances until we found him laughing heartily at his own mishap. Then one glance at our host's horrified expression set us off. A fresh chair was with difficulty procured and we sat down again.

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