MY FIRST MISSION TO BHUTAN
our pensioners at Kalimpong. It says a great deal for Sir Ugyen Wang-chuk that he allowed this man, one of his most powerful enemies, to return to his old home and die there in peace, and then allowed the widow and daughters to remain on unmolested in the pretty place.
We reached our camping-ground at Chalimaphe after rather an uninteresting march, and pitched our tents round one of the largest weeping cypresses I have ever seen. It measured fifty feet round the trunk five feet above the ground. This would have been a pleasant halting-place but for the howling wind that roared up the valley and nearly blew our tents down, so we were not sorry to be off the next day, more especially as this proved to be quite the most interesting day I had yet spent in Bhutan.
Mounting our mules, we started early, and almost at once came in sight of Simtoka, the oldest fort in the country. Turning to the left, we rode along the left bank of the Tchin-chhu, where, about half a mile further on, I saw a fine cantilever bridge carrying a large wooden channel with a stream of water across the Tchin-chhu to irrigate a succession of rice-fields on the opposite side. I have particularly noticed during my travels in the country how remarkably skilful the Bhutanese are in laying out canals and irrigation channels, and the clever way in which they overcome what to ordinary people would be insurmountable difficulties in leading the water over steep, difficult places on bridges or masonry aqueducts, often built up to a great height. Riding on, the plain opened up into cultivation, extending its entire width and far up the mountain slopes, which were only sparsely clothed with forest. We crossed the Tchin-chhu, and shortly passed on our right a conspicuous knoll in the very centre of the plain. This marks the scene of an act of treachery on the part of the present Paro Penlop that materially changed the course of events in Bhutan, and was the beginning of the Tongsa Penlop's power.
In 1885 Gau-Zangpo was Deb Raja, and Aloo Dorji the
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