A servitor came forward and filled two glasses with Bhutanese liquor from a bamboo bottle. They were offered us; and my subaltern and I made a heroic attempt to drink the nauseous-looking stuff. But the smell was enough. The taste! A mixture of castor and codliver oil, senna and asafoetida would have been nectar compared with it. We begged to be excused, on the plea that we had been teetotallers all our lives. I then ordered my present to be brought forward. It was a haunch of a _sambhur_ which I had shot two days before. The gift was a great success. The Deb Zimpun's eyes glistened and he showed his teeth, stained red with betel-nut chewing, in a gracious smile. His unkempt followers crowded around us, looked hungrily at the meat, and seemed to calculate whether there was enough to go round. The Maharajah of Bhutan, as a good Buddhist, had recently decreed that for two years no animals were to be slaughtered for food in his country. So this venison was a luxury to them all. Before the excellent impression of our gift could die Creagh and I rose to take our leave and departed hurriedly. But we were not to escape so easily. Hardly had we reached the Mess on our return when we were informed that the Deb Zimpun had, as a special mark of favour, sent his two best musicians to play for us. So we came out on the veranda and found two swarthy ruffians squatting in the garden, holding silver-banded pipes like flageolets. We seated ourselves and the performance began. I have patiently endured Chinese, Japanese, and Indian music, have even listened unmoved to the strains of a German band in London; but the ear-piercing, soul-harrowing noises that these two ruffians produced were too much for me. We wondered, if these were the Envoy's best musicians, what his worst could be like. I hurriedly presented each of them with a rupee and sent them away, more than compensated by the money for their abrupt dismissal. On the following day we invited the Deb Zimpun to lunch with us in the Mess and instructed our Gurkha cook to do his best, which was not much. We found that our guest, having visited India before and having accompanied the Tongsa _Penlop_ to Calcutta, was quite expert in the use of a knife and fork, and enjoyed European fare. He was very temperate and refused to touch liquor. But he was not imitated in this by his suite. After lunch he told us that his lama, who was sitting with the rest of his followers in the Mess garden, was anxious to taste whisky, of which he had heard. We invited the priest in and poured him out a stiff five-finger peg of neat Scotch whisky. The holy man smelled it, raised the glass to his lips, and elevated it until not a drop was left. He could not apparently make up his mind as to whether he liked the liquor or not. So we offered him another glass. He accepted it and disposed of it as promptly. We looked at him in astonishment; but it had no effect on him. I told the interpreter to ask him what he thought of whisky.