Ch. 25: Namgay Doola - Page 2

piteously at my tent
door. He was scuffling with the Prime Minister and the Director-General
of Public Education, and he was a royal gift to me and my camp servants.
I expressed my thanks suitably, and asked if I might have audience of
the King. The Prime Minister readjusted his turban, which had fallen off
in the struggle, and assured me that the King would be very pleased to
see me. Therefore I despatched two bottles as a foretaste, and when the
sheep had entered upon another incarnation went to the King's Palace
through the wet. He had sent his army to escort me, but the army stayed
to talk with my cook. Soldiers are very much alike all the world over.

The Palace was a four-roomed and whitewashed mud and timber house, the
finest in all the hills for a day's journey. The King was dressed in a
purple velvet jacket, white muslin trousers, and a saffron-yellow turban
of price. He gave me audience in a little carpeted room opening off the
palace courtyard which was occupied by the Elephant of State. The great
beast was sheeted and anchored from trunk to tail, and the curve of his
back stood out grandly against the mist.

The Prime Minister and the Director-General of Public Education were
present to introduce me, but all the court had been dismissed, lest the
two bottles aforesaid should corrupt their morals. The King cast a
wreath of heavy-scented flowers round my neck as I bowed, and inquired
how my honoured presence had the felicity to be. I said that through
seeing his auspicious countenance the mists of the night had turned into
sunshine, and that by reason of his beneficent sheep his good deeds
would be remembered by the Gods. He said that since I had set my
magnificent foot in his Kingdom the crops would probably yield seventy
per cent more than the average. I said that the fame of the King had
reached to the four corners of the earth, and that the nations gnashed
their teeth when they heard daily of the glories of his realm and the
wisdom of his moon-like Prime Minister and lotus-like Director-General
of Public Education.

Then we sat down on clean white cushions, and I was at the King's right
hand. Three minutes later he was telling me that the state of the maize
crop was something disgraceful, and that the railway-companies would not
pay him enough for his timber. The talk shifted to and fro with the
bottles, and we discussed very many stately things, and the King became
confidential on the subject of Government generally. Most of all he
dwelt on the shortcomings of one of his subjects, who, from all I could
gather, had been paralyzing the executive.

'In the old days,' said the King, 'I could have ordered the Elephant
yonder to trample him to death. Now I must e'en send him seventy