All that day we had passed numbers of mules coming down from Tibet laden with bales of wool, and others were returning to Tibet with sheets of copper, manufactured goods, grain and rice which had been bought in exchange. The dark faces of the muleteers with their turquoise earrings formed a pretty picture and they were full of friendly smiles and greetings for us. The mules travelled on their own--if any mule stopped on the path, a stone always aimed with the greatest accuracy reminded him that it was time to go on. Owing to our having to halt a day at Rongli, we had to stop the second party, and were able to do this at Ari, a bungalow 3 miles short of Rongli. I rode up to see how they were getting on, and found they were having the same trouble with their mules that we had been having. On May 23 we left for Sedongchen, or Padamchen as the Tibetans called it. Sedongchen is the old local name, so-called because there once grew there a very large "Sedong" tree. This is a tree that has a white sap which irritates the skin intensely and sets up a rash. Sedongchen was only 9 miles from Rongli, but there was a very steep climb, from 2,700 feet up to 7,000 feet, and our mules only just managed to arrive there. The first part of the way is alongside the rushing stream of the Rongli, through lovely woods and dense tropical vegetation. Caladiums, kolocasias and begonias were growing on every rock, and the giant pothos with its large shining leaves grew up the stems of many of the trees. Climbers of all kinds, such as vines and peppers, hung down from the branches. Here, too, were magnificent forest trees, fully 150 feet high, with clean straight trunks and without a branch for a hundred feet; others nearly equally tall, which the Sikkim people call "Panisage," had huge buttresses and trunks nearly 40 feet in circumference. Every branch here was covered by thick matted growth of orchids. For the first time since leaving Darjeeling the sun shone, and after we left the forests we found the uphill climb very hot. On to-day's march, out of the fifty mules with which we started there were only fourteen carrying our own kit, and of those fourteen we found on arrival at Sedongchen that none would be fit to proceed on the following day. It was therefore with great reluctance that I felt compelled to send back the Government mules, as they could not only not carry their own line gear, but had become an extra and very large source of expense and worry to us. That the mules should have completely broken down like this after a five days' march showed that they must have been in no kind of training and condition and were completely unfitted for heavy work in the mountains. The hill ponies and mules that we had hired to supplement them, although they had been given the heaviest loads, always arrived first, and made nothing of each march. By this failure of the Government transport we were now thrown back on our own resources, and obliged to depend everywhere on what local transport we could obtain, and this often took some time to collect.