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helpmates, Rai Sahibs Lal Singh and Ram Singh, and by that honest gentlemanly Rajput, Mian Jasvant Singh, who had looked so well after their bodily needs. It was a real comfort to make sure that they were all to receive richly merited promotion in their Department.
During my few days' stay at Calcutta Lord Minto gave fresh proof of the personal interest with which he had followed my travels throughout, and of his benevolent thought for my Indian assistants. I could leave the Indian capital with the comforting assurance that, thanks to Lord Minto's personal interposition, poor Naik Ram Singh, whose helpless blind state had deeply moved me when I saw him again at Lahore, was soon to be granted a special pension far above the ordinary rates applicable to his rank and service.
To Rai Lal Singh, who had all through displayed zeal, energy, and utter indifference to hardships such as I had never seen equalled by any Indian, the Honours list of the New Year brought due official recognition by the award of the title of Rai Bahadur. Rai Ram Singh, the Surveyor, had before been awarded by the Royal Geographical Society a valuable prize in acknowledgment of the important topographical services he had rendered on successive expeditions. Nor was my excellent Chinese secretary forgotten, since the Indian Foreign Office, whose distinguished head, the Hon. Mr. H. Butler, had been made aware by me of Chiang-ssû-yeh's important services, arranged to present him with a valuable gold watch as a special mark of the Indian Government's gratitude.
On the day after Christmas, 1908, I was at last able to embark at Bombay for Europe. That very morning I had been obliged to part from ` Dash,' the last of my faithful travel companions, but, perhaps, the nearest to my heart, since the P. and O. Mail boat would not receive him amongst its passengers. However, he travelled quite safely, though alone, by another steamer, and in the end, after paying his penalty to ` civilization ' by a four months' quarantine on the free shores of Britain, was joyfully restored to his master under Mr. P. S. Allen's hospitable roof at Oxford. The voyage home gave a short
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