Trans-Himalaya (Volume 1 of 2) : Discoveries and Adventurers in Tibet

We pass through one zone of vegetation after another. The flora of the plain is left far behind; now the eye notices new forms in new zones—forms characteristic of the various heights of the southern slopes of the Himalayas—and at last appear the dark deodar forests, the royal Himalayan cedars, with their luxuriant green foliage, amidst which are embedded the houses of Simla like swallows’ nests. How fascinating is this sight, but how much more imposing as a symbol of the power of the British Empire! Here the eagle has its eyry, and from its point of vantage casts its keen eyes over the plains of India. Here converge innumerable telegraph wires from all the corners and extremities of the British Empire, and from this centre numerous orders and instructions are daily despatched “On His Majesty’s Service only”; here the administration is carried on and the army controlled, and a host of maharajas are entangled in the meshes like the prey in the nest of a spider.I approached Simla with some anxiety. Since Lord Curzon’s letter I had heard nothing more from the authorities in India. The singular town on its crescent-shaped ridge appears larger and larger, details become clearer and clearer, there remain only a couple of curves to pass, and then the train rolls into the station at Simla. Two servants from the Foreign Office, in scarlet liveries, took possession of my luggage, and I was welcomed in the Grand Hotel by my old friend Colonel Sir Francis Younghusband—we kept Christmas together in Kashgar in 1890, and he was just as friendly and pleasant as then. I was his guest at dinner in the United Service Club. During half the night we revelled in old reminiscences of the heart of Asia, spoke of the powerful Russian Consul-General, Petrovski, in Kashgar, of the English expedition 7 to Lhasa, which was led by Younghusband, of life in Simla and the coming festivities in the summer season—but of my prospects my friend did not utter a word! And I did not ask him; I could believe that if everything had been plain and straightforward he would have told me at once. But he was silent as the grave, and I would not question him, though I was burning with impatience to learn something or other.