SIKHIM AND BHUTAN
hog-deer, barking deer, &c. The river-beds are full of runs leading to the various salt-licks which occur in the hills. On one of my visits to the coal a magnificent tusker went up the valley ahead of me, and Ugyen Kazi, who pitched his camp higher up the valley, was obliged to move his tents owing to the numbers of wild elephants making it too unpleasant for him to stay on. While I was examining the coal a large tigress with her cub walked down the valley, and on my return I found her pugs, with the little one’s pug inside one of her own. It would be an ideal place for shooting, but not easy to follow game, owing to the extreme steepness of the sandstone cliffs.
The elephant in its wild state can go over, or down, nearly anything, and the tusker I mentioned I found had gone up a precipice thirty feet high at an angle very little short of perpendicular.
I found the coal very much crushed and squeezed out of its original bed. The quality also was not very good, with too much ash, but it might be utilised to make gas, which could be supplied to the neighbouring tea-gardens at probably less cost than the timber now in use for fuel. After inspecting the coal I left Ugyen Kazi to attend to some timber contracts he had undertaken, and to the sale of the Bhutan lac, and fortunately finding a dog-cart available, set off to drive to the ghat at Rungamatti, a quicker way of travelling than on an elephant. There had been some rain, but the roads were in fair order. At Rungamatti I had a long wait for the steamer, which had stuck on a sandbank somewhere further up the river, and in consequence we were nearly twenty-four hours late in reaching Dhubri, the present terminus of the railway; but from there there was no difficulty in getting back to my home at Gangtak. This ended my last official visit to Bhutan; but I hope it will not be my last visit, as I look forward to meeting Sir Ugyen and his sister again, as well as all the Bhutan officials, and to revisiting the country in which I have spent so many pleasant months.
236
