rmy corps to shake the Dalai Lama on his
throne--or if there were no throne or Dalai Lama, to do what? I wondered
if the gentlemen sitting snugly in Downing Street had any idea.

At Phari I was snow-bound for a week, and there were no doolie-bearers.
The Darjeeling dandy-wallahs were no doubt at the front, where they were
most wanted, as the trained army doolie corps are plainsmen, who can
barely breathe, much less work, at these high elevations. At last we
secured some Bhutias who were returning to the front.

The Bhutia is a type I have long known, though not in the capacity of
bearer. These men regarded the doolie with the invalid inside as a piece
of baggage that had to be conveyed from one camp to another, no matter
how. Of the art of their craft they knew nothing, but they battled with
the elements so stoutly that one forgave them their awkwardness. They
carried me along mountain-paths so slippery that a mule could find no
foothold, through snow so deep and clogging that with all their toil
they could make barely half a mile an hour; and they took shelter once
from a hailstorm in which exposure without thick head-covering might
have been fatal. Often they dropped the doolie, sometimes on the edge of
a precipice, in places where one perspired with fright; they collided
quite unnecessarily with stones and rocks; but they got through, and
that was the main point. Men who have carried a doolie over a difficult
mountain-pass (14,350 feet), slipping and stumbling through snow and ice
in the face of a hurricane of wind, deserve well of the great Raj which
they serve.

On the road into Darjeeling, owing to the absence of trained
doolie-bearers, I met a human miscellany that I am not likely to forget.
Eight miles beyond the Jelap lies the fort of Gnatong, whence there is a
continual descent to the plains of India. The neighbouring hills and
valleys had been searched for men; high wages were offered, and at last
from some remote village in Sikkim came a dozen weedy Lepchas, simian in
appearance, and of uncouth speech, who understood no civilized tongue.
They had never seen a doolie, but in default of better they were
employed. It was nobody's fault; bearers must be had, and the
profession was unpopular. I was their 'first job.' I settled myself
comfortably, all unconscious of my impending fate. They started off with
a wild whoop, threw the doolie up in the air, caught it on their
shoulders, and played cup and ball with th