Soon after our arrival in Buxa I received a letter from the Political Officer in Sikkim, Tibet, and Bhutan informing me that he proposed to visit our little Station and hold a Durbar there in order to pay over to a representative of the Bhutanese Government the annual subsidy of fifty thousand rupees. He requested me to furnish a Guard of Honour of a hundred men for the ceremony. The news that Buxa was to rise to the dignity of a Durbar of its own and be honoured with the presence of the Envoy of a friendly State was positively exciting. True, neither the Durbar nor the Envoy were very important; still, with them, we felt that we were about to make history. The officer who has charge of our political relations with these three countries resides at Gantok, the capital of Sikkim, and, until recently, administered the affairs of that State. Of late years the Maharajah has been admitted to a share of the Government. In Chunabatti lived two natives of Darjeeling, British subjects, who were paid a salary by our Government to help in transacting diplomatic affairs with Bhutan. They were officially styled the Bhutan Agent and the Bhutanese interpreter. Their knowledge of English, acquired in a school of Darjeeling, was not extensive; and their acquaintance with Hindustani was on a par. They were men of a Tibetan type, dressed like our Bhuttias, except that they wore a headgear like a football cap and also gaily striped, undoubted football stockings. Shortly after the receipt of the Political Officer's letter, one of these men, the Agent, came to my bungalow one afternoon and informed me that the Bhutan Government's representative had arrived in Buxa and was lodged in the Circuit House. The Agent wished to know when I intended paying an official call on this personage. I had sufficient acquaintance with the ways of Orientals to be aware that this was an impertinence, for it was the place of the Envoy to make his visit first to the officer commanding the Station; but, like the Chinese, who have a childish desire to assert their own importance on every occasion, he was endeavouring to steal a march on me. So I assumed a haughty demeanour and informed the Agent that I would be prepared to receive the Envoy at my house in two hours' time, as he must first call on me. The Agent at once agreed that this was the proper course, as, indeed he had known all the time.