We also engaged almost the most important subordinate member of the Expedition—the interpreter, Karma Paul. He was quite young, and had been a schoolmaster in Darjeeling. He had also worked, I believe, for a time in an office in Calcutta. He was quite new to the kind of work that he would have to do. But he was a great acquisition to the Expedition, always good company and always cheerful, full of a quaint little vanity of his own and delighted when he was praised. He served us very well indeed from one end of the Expedition to the other, and it was a great deal owing to his cheerfulness and to his excellent manners and way with the Tibetans that we never had the smallest possible misunderstanding with any officials, even of the lowest grades, to disturb our good relations with the Tibetans of any kind or class. He also was bilingual, for he had been born in Lhasa, and still had relations living there. On March 26 the whole Expedition started off for Kalimpong by rail, with the exception of Captain Finch and Mr. Crawford, who remained to bring on the oxygen. Owing to the kindness of the Himalayan Railway Company, we were all taken round by rail to Kalimpong Road free, the whole Expedition travelling up the Teesta Valley in the normal manner, with the exception of Captain Noel, who elected to ride on the roof of the carriages in order to take pictures with his cinema camera of the Teesta Valley. The junction at Siliguri, where the Teesta railway branches off from the main line, is only 300 feet above the sea, the terminus at Kalimpong Road about 700 feet above the sea, and therefore as one dives down from the hills one enters into tropical conditions and passes through the most magnificent tropical jungle and the steepest gorges and ravines. It is a wonderful journey. Even the long spell of hot and dry weather and the heat haze at this time of year were unable to spoil the scenery. And though we saw it almost at its worst time, it remained gorgeous. At Kalimpong the Expedition broke up into two parties, but before we left we had a very pleasant function to attend. I had been charged by Sir Robert Baden-Powell to deliver a message to the scouts of Dr. Graham’s Homes for European Children at Kalimpong. Not only that, but incorporated with these scouts was the first small body of Nepalese boy-scouts. It was a very interesting function indeed, and a most enthusiastic one.