They are of the Mongolian type of feature, yet they have very distinctive features of their own, and would never be mistaken for either the Tibetans, the Nepalese, or the Bhutanese, who touch them on either side, and they seem to have come along the foothills from Assam and Burma. Their chief characteristic is undoubtedly their gentleness. Timidity is the word which might better describe it. They live in a still, soft, humid climate, and their character is soft like the climate; but their disposition is also attractive, like their country. They are great lovers of Nature, and unequalled as collectors. In their own country and unspoiled they are frank and open, good-natured and smiling, and when they are at their ease, amiable, obliging, and polite. They are indolent and improvident, but they seldom have private or political feuds. They never aggress upon their neighbours. And by nature they are scrupulously honest. Their women are chaste, and neither men nor women drink in excess.
These 6,000 Lepchas certainly have every estimable quality, and many for which we Europeans are not strikingly remarkable. Yet mere gentleness, without strength and passion at the back, can hardly count much in the world, and it is not possible seriously to regard the Lepchas as an ensample for our living. Even the naughty little Gurkhas, who would, except for our protection of the Lepchas, have long since swallowed them up, we really prefer.
We remained only a few days in Gantok, and then pushed on toward the Tibetan frontier, for we were well on in the summer now, and we wanted, if possible, to get the matter settled before winter. The rain never ceased: bucketfuls and bucketfuls came drenching down. The ordinary waterproofing in which we wrapped our luggage was soaked through as if it had been paper. In the valley bottom we passed the camp of the 32nd Pioneers engaged in improving the road, and anything more depressing and miserable I have never seen. Tents, clothes, furniture—everything was soaking. The heat was stifling, the insect pests unbearable. Fever sapped the life out of the men, and one shuddered at the misery of life under such conditions: day after day, week after week, month after month, digging and blasting away at a road which as soon as it was made was washed into the river again; wet through with rain and with perspiration while at work, and finding everything equally moist on returning to camp; tormented with insect pests at work and in camp by night and by day. Yet it was only by mastering such conditions as these that the eventual settlement with Tibet was ever rendered possible.