The Government of India always equips and organizes its expeditions well, and such little arrangements were soon and readily made. And by a piece of foresight on its part, there was on the spot in Sikkim the best practical rough-and-ready supply and transport officer in their service, Major Bretherton, D.S.O., a very old friend of mine in Chitral days, a man of unbounded energy, of infinite resource, and of quite unconquerable optimism, who was drowned in the Brahmaputra within a few days’ march of Lhasa, when we were just about to reap the reward which he, more than any other single man, had put within our reach.
All headquarter arrangements having been made, and my formal instructions received, Mr. White and I left Simla early in June to proceed by Darjiling to the Sikkim frontier. In India such enterprises as we were now embarking on are always started off very quietly, and few outside a limited official circle, and possibly the Russian Government, knew anything at all about our mission. The Government of India is over-sensitive to questions and criticisms in Parliament, and, dependent as it is upon the support of public opinion in England, would be better advised, in my opinion, to take the public in England more into its confidence. But this sensitiveness is intelligible. It must by the necessity of the case be especially difficult to govern India from England, but that task is rendered vastly more difficult by careless questions and criticisms of Members of Parliament. My mission suffered much through the want of support by the British public, and they could hardly have been expected to give it support when it was eventually sprung so suddenly on them, and when they had not had the opportunity of watching affairs gradually growing to a crisis. On the other hand, the Indian Government cannot be expected to expose delicate affairs to the risk of rough, crude handling from men who, though they ultimately control these affairs, are so very little versed in their conduct.
I departed, then, from Simla in the most matter-of-fact manner possible, telling my friends, what was perfectly true, that I was going to see Darjiling. I had therefore no “enthusiastic send-off.” But I had what was better, the heartfelt good wishes of the Viceroy, who has known the conditions under which frontier officers work, and has been more interested in the problems which confront them than any other Viceroy for many a year past. I was also greatly cheered, and subsequently most warmly and continuously supported, by Sir Louis Dane, the Foreign Secretary, whose hospitality I had enjoyed during my stay in Simla.