Mount Everest the Reconnaissance, 1921 Part 9

THE NORTHERN APPROACH--_continued_

The reader will gather from these notes some idea of the whole nature of our problem and the subjects of our most anxious thoughts. The camp established on June 25 lasted us until July 8. Meanwhile the idea was growing, the vision of Everest as a structural whole, and of the glaciers and lower summits to North and West. This idea resembled the beginning of an artist's painting, a mere rough design at the start, but growing by steps of clearer definition in one part and another towards the precise completion of a whole. For us the mountain parts defined themselves in the mind as the result of various expeditions. We set out to gain a point of view with particular questions to be answered; partial answers and a new point of view stimulated more curiosity, other questions, and again the necessity to reach a particular place whence we imagined they might best be answered. And at the same time another aim had to be kept in mind. The coolies, though mountain-men, were not mountaineers. They had to be trained in the craft of mountaineering, in treading safely on snow or ice in dangerous places, in climbing easy rocks and most particularly in the use of rope and ice-axe--and this not merely for our foremost needs, but to ensure that, whenever we were able to launch an a.s.sault upon Mount Everest, and all would be put to the most exhausting test, they should have that reserve strength of a practised balance and ordered method on which security must ultimately depend.

On July 1 I set out with five coolies to reach the head of the great cwm under the North face of Mount Everest. The snow on the upper glacier was soft and made very heavy going. Bad weather came up and in a race against the clouds we were beaten and failed to find out what happened to the glacier at its Western head under the North-west arete. My view of the col lying between Everest and the North Peak (Changtse)--the North Col as we now began to call it, or in Tibetan Chang La--was also unsatisfactory; but I saw enough to make out a broken glacier running up eastwards towards the gap with steep and uninviting snow slopes under the pa.s.s. I was now sure that before attempting to reach this col from the Rongbuk Glacier, if ever we determined to reach it, we should have to reconnoitre the other side and if possible find a more hopeful alternative; moreover, from a nearer inspection of the slopes below the North-west arete I was convinced that they could be chosen for an attack only as a last resort; if anything were to be attempted here, we must find a better way up from the East.

I had vaguely hoped to bring the party home sufficiently fresh to climb again on the following day. But the fatigue of going in deep snow for three hours up the glacier, though we had been no higher than 19,100 feet, had been too great, and again we had noticed only a slight relief in coming down; it was a tired party that dragged back over the glacier crossing and into camp at 6.15 p.m., thirteen hours after starting.

July 3 was devoted to an expedition designed chiefly to take coolies on to steeper ground and at the same time to explore the small glacier which we had observed above us on the first day to the North-west; by following up the terrace from our present camp we could now come to the snout of it in half an hour or less. After working up the glacier we made for a snow col between two high peaks. On reaching a bergschrund we found above its upper lip hard ice, which continued no doubt to the ridge. While Bullock looked after the party below I cut a staircase slanting up to a small island of rock 100 feet away; from that security I began to bring the party up. We had now the interesting experience of seeing our coolies for the first time on real hard ice; it was not a convincing spectacle, as they made their way up with the ungainly movements of beginners; and though the last man never left the secure anchorage of the bergschrund, the proportion of two Sahibs to five coolies seemed lamentably weak, and when one man slipped from the steep steps at an awkward corner, though Bullock was able to hold him, it was clearly time to retire. But the descent was a better performance; the coolies were apt pupils, and we felt that with practice on the glacier the best of them should become safe mountaineers. And on this day we had reached a height of 21,000 feet[8] from our camp at 17,500 feet. I had the great satisfaction of observing that one could cut steps quite happily at this alt.i.tude. The peak lying to the North of the col, which had been our objective on this day, attracted our attention by its position; we thought it should have a commanding view over all this complicated country, and after a day in camp very pleasantly spent in receiving a visit from Colonel Howard-Bury and Dr. Heron, set out on July 5 determined to reach its summit. The start was made at 4.15 a.m.

in the first light, an hour earlier than usual; we proceeded up the stone shoots immediately above our camp and after a halt for photography at the glorious moment of sunrise had made 2,500 feet and reached the high shoulder above us at 7 a.m. This place was connected with our peak by a snowy col which had now to be reached by a long traverse over a South-facing slope. Though the angle was not steep very little snow was lying here, and where the ice was peeping through it was occasionally necessary to cut steps. I felt it was a satisfactory performance to reach the col at 9.30 a.m.; the coolies had come well, though one of them was burdened with the quarter-plate camera; but evidently their efforts had already tired them. Ahead of us was a long, curving snow arete, slightly corniced and leading ultimately to a rocky shoulder. We thought that once this shoulder was gained the summit would be within our reach. Shortly after we went on two coolies dropped out, and by 11.30 a.m. the rest had given up the struggle. It was fortunate that they fell out here and not later, for they were able to make their way down in our tracks and regain the col below in safety. The angle steepened as we went on very slowly now, but still steadily enough, until we reached the rocks, a frail slatey structure with short perpendicular pitches. From the shoulder onwards my memories are dim. I have the impression of a summit continually receding from the position imagined by sanguine hopes and of a task growing constantly more severe, of steeper sides, of steps to be cut, of a dwindling pace, more frequent little halts standing where we were, and of breathing quicker but no less deep and always conscious; the respiratory engine had to be kept running as the indispensable source of energy, and ever as we went on more work was required of it. At last we found ourselves without an alternative under an icy wall; but the ice was a delusion; in the soft flaky substance smothering rocks behind it we had strength left to cut a way up to the crest again, and after a few more steps were on the summit itself.

[8] Calculated from the readings of two aneroids, allowing a correction for the height of the camp as established later by Major Wheeler.

It was now 2.45 p.m. The aneroid used by Bullock, which, after comparison with one of Howard-Bury's was supposed to read low, registered 23,050 feet,[9] and we puffed out our chests as we examined it, computing that we had risen from our camp over 5,500 feet. The views both earlier in the day and at this moment were of the highest interest.

To the East we had confirmed our impression of the North Peak as having a high ridge stretching eastwards and forming the side of whatever valley connected with the Arun River in this direction; the upper parts of Everest's North face had been clearly visible for a long time, and we could now be certain that they lay back at no impossibly steep angle, more particularly above the North col and up to the North-east shoulder.

All we had seen immediately to the West of the mountain had been of the greatest interest, and had suggested the idea that the crinkled summit there might be connected not directly with Mount Everest itself, but only by way of the South peak. And finally we now saw the connections of all that lay around us with the two great triangulated peaks away to the West, Gyachung Kang, 25,990 and Cho-Uyo, 26,870 feet. While complaining of the clouds which had come up as usual during the morning to spoil our view we were not dissatisfied with the expansion of our knowledge and we were elated besides to be where we were. But our situation was far from perfectly secure. The ascent had come very near to exhausting our strength; for my part I felt distinctly mountain-sick; we might reflect that we should not be obliged to cut more steps, but we should have to proceed downwards with perfect accuracy of balance and a long halt was desirable. However, the clouds were now gathering about us, dark thunder-clouds come up from the North and threatening; it was clear we must not wait; after fifteen minutes on the summit we started down at three o'clock. Fortune favoured us. The wind was no more than a breeze; a few flakes of snow were unnoticed in our flight; the temperature was mild; the storm's malice was somehow dissipated with no harm done. We rejoined the coolies before five o'clock and were back in our camp at 7.15 p.m., happy to have avoided a descent in the dark.

[9] The survey established the height of this peak as 22,520 feet, and our subsequent experience suggests that aneroid barometers habitually read too high when approaching the upper limit of their record.

Our next plan, based on our experience of this long mountain ridge, was to practise the coolies in the use of crampons on hard snow and ice. But snow fell heavily on the night of the 6th; we deferred our project. It was the beginning of worse weather; the monsoon was breaking in earnest.

And though crampons afterwards came up to our camps wherever we went they were not destined to help us, and in the event were never used.

On July 8 we moved up with a fresh party of seven coolies, taking only our lightest tents and no more than was necessary for three nights, in the hope that by two energetic expeditions we should reach the Western cwm which, we suspected, must exist on the far side of the North-west arete, and learn enough to found more elaborate plans for exploring this side of the mountain should they turn out to be necessary. Again we were fortunate in finding a good camping ground, better even than the first, for the floor of this shelf was gra.s.sy and soft, and as we were looking South across the West Rongbuk Glacier we had the sun late as well as early. But we were not completely happy. A Mummery tent may be well enough in fair weather, though even then its low roof suggests a rec.u.mbent att.i.tude; it makes a poor dining-room, even for two men, and is a cold shelter from snow. Moreover, the cold and draught discouraged our Primus stove--but I leave to the imagination of those who have learned by experience the nausea that comes from the paraffin fumes and one's dirty hands and all the mess that may be. It was chiefly a question of incompetence, no doubt, but there was no consolation in admitting that. In the morning, with the weather still very thick and the snow lying about us we saw the error of our ways. Is it not a first principle of mountaineering to be as comfortable as possible as long as one can? And how long should we require for these operations in such weather? It was clear that our Second Advanced Camp must be organised on a more permanent basis. On the 9th therefore I went down to the base and moved it up on the following day so as to be within reach of our present position by one long march. The new place greatly pleased me; it was much more sheltered than the lower site and the tents were pitched on flat turf where a clear spring flowed out from the hillside and only a quarter of an hour below the end of the glacier. Meanwhile Bullock brought up the Whymper tents and more stores from the First Advanced Camp, which was now established as a half-way house with our big 80-foot tent standing in solemn grandeur to protect all that remained there. On July 10 I was back at the Second Advanced Camp and felt satisfied that the new arrangements, and particularly the presence of our cook, would give us a fair measure of comfort.

But we were still unable to move next day. The snowfall during the night was the heaviest we had yet seen and continued into the next day.

Probably the coolies were not sorry for a rest after some hard work; and we reckoned to make a long expedition so soon as the weather should clear. Towards evening on the 10th the clouds broke. Away to the South-west of us and up the glacier was the barrier range on the frontier of Nepal, terminated by one great mountain, Pumori, over 24,000 feet high. To the West Rongbuk Glacier they present the steepest slopes on which snow can lie; the crest above these slopes is surprisingly narrow and the peaks which it joins are fantastically shaped. This group of mountains, always beautiful and often in the highest degree impressive, was now to figure for our eyes as the princ.i.p.al in that oft-repeated drama which seems always to be a first night, fresh and full of wonder whenever we are present to watch it. The clinging curtains were rent and swirled aside and closed again, lifted and lowered and flung wide at last; sunlight broke through with sharp shadows and clean edges revealed--and we were there to witness the amazing spectacle. Below the terrible mountains one white smooth island rose from the quiet sea of ice and was bathed in the calm full light of the Western sun before the splendour failed.

With hopes inspired by the clearing views of this lovely evening, we started at 5.30 a.m. on July 12 to follow the glacier round to the South and perhaps enter the Western cwm. The glacier was a difficult problem.

It looked easy enough to follow up the medial moraine to what we called the Island, a low mountain pushed out from the frontier ridge into the great sea of ice. But the way on Southwards from there would have been a gamble with the chances of success against us. We decided to cross the glacier directly to the South with a certainty that once we had reached the moraine on the other side we should have a clear way before us. It was exhilarating to set out again under a clear sky, and we were delighted to think that a large part of this task was accomplished when the sun rose full of warmth and cheerfulness. The far side was cut off by a stream of white ice, so narrow here that we expected with a little good fortune to get through it in perhaps half an hour. We entered it by a frozen stream leading into a bay with high white towers and ridges above us. A side door led through into a further bay which took us in the confidence of success almost through the maze. With some vigorous blows we cut our way up the final wall and then found ourselves on a crest overlooking the moraine with a sheer ice-precipice of about 100 feet below us.

The only hope was to come down again and work round to the right. Some exciting climbing and much hard work brought us at length to the foot of the cliffs and on the right side. The performance had taken us two and a half hours and it was now nearly ten o'clock. Clouds had already come up to obscure the mountains, and from the point of view of a prolonged exploration the day was clearly lost. Our course now was to make the best of it and yet get back so early to camp that we could set forth again on the following day. We had the interest, after following the moraine to the corner where the glacier bends Southwards, of making our way into the middle of the ice and finding out how unpleasant it can be to walk on a glacier melted everywhere into little valleys and ridges and covered with fresh snow. We got back at 3 p.m.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUMMIT OF MOUNT EVEREST AND NORTH PEAK from the Island, West Rongbuk Glacier.]

On July 13, determined to make good, we started at 4.15 a.m. With the knowledge gained on the previous day and the use of 250 feet of spare rope we were able to find our way through the ice pinnacles and reached the far moraine in less than an hour and a half; and we had the further good fortune when we took to the snow to find it now in such good condition that we were able to walk on the surface without using our snow-shoes. As we proceeded up the slopes where the snow steepened the weather began to thicken and we halted at 8 a.m. in a thick mist with a nasty wind and some snow falling. It was a cold halt. We were already somewhat disillusioned about our glacier, which seemed to be much more narrow than was to be expected if it were really a high-road to the Western cwm, and as we went on with the wind blowing the snow into our faces so that nothing could be clearly distinguished we had the sense of a narrowing place and a perception of the even surface being broken up into large creva.s.ses on one side and the other. At 9.30 we could go no further. For a few hundred yards we had been traversing a slope which rose above us on our left, and now coming out on to a little spur we stood peering down through the mist and knew ourselves to be on the edge of a considerable precipice. Not a single feature of the landscape around us was even faintly visible in the cloud. For a time we stayed on with the dim hope of better things and then reluctantly retired, baffled and bewildered.

Where had we been? It was impossible to know; but at least it was certain there was no clear way to the West side of Everest. We could only suppose that we had reached a col on the frontier of Nepal.

A further disappointment awaited us when we reached camp at 1 p.m. I had made a simple plan to ensure our supply of gobar[10] and rations from the base camp. The supplies had not come up and it was not the sort of weather to be without a fire for cooking.

[10] In the Rongbuk Valley there was no wood and our supply of yak dung had to come up from Chobuk.

I shall now proceed to quote my diary:--

_July_ 14.--A day of rest, but with no republican demonstrations. Very late breakfast after some snow in the night. Piquet after tiffin and again after dinner was very consoling. The little streams we found here on our arrival are drying up; it seems that not much snow can have fallen higher.

_July_ 15.--Started 6 a.m. to explore the glacier to West and North-west. A very interesting view just short of the Island; the South peak appearing. Fifty minutes there for photos; then hurried on in the hope of seeing more higher up and at a greater distance. It is really a dry glacier here but with snow frozen over the surface making many pitfalls. We had a good many wettings in cold water up to the knees. The clouds were just coming up as we halted on the medial moraine. I waited there in hope of better views, while Bullock took on the coolies. They put on snow-shoes for the first time and seemed to go very well in them.

Ultimately I struggled across the glacier, bearing various burdens, to meet them as they came down on a parallel moraine. Snow-shoes seemed useful, but very awkward to leap in. Bullock went a long way up the glacier, rising very slightly towards the peak Cho-Uyo, 26,870 feet.

Evidently there is a flat pa.s.s over into Nepal near this peak, but he did not quite reach it.

The topographical mystery centres about the West Peak. Is there an arete connecting this with the great rock peak South of Everest or is it joined up with the col we reached the day before yesterday? The shape of the West cwm and the question of its exit will be solved if we can answer these questions. Bullock and I are agreed that the glacier there has probably an exit on the Nepal side. It all remains extremely puzzling. We saw the North col quite clearly to-day, and again the way up from there does not look difficult.

A finer day and quite useful. Chitayn[11] started out with us and went back. He appears to be seedy, but has been quite hopeless as Sirdar down in the base camp and is without authority. It is a great handicap having no one to look after things down there. Chitayn is returning to Tingri to-morrow. I hope he will cheer up again.

[11] A useful coolie with experience in the Indian Army. I had used him as second Sirdar.

_July_ 16.--I made an early start with two coolies at 2.45 a.m. and followed the medial moraine to the Island. Reached the near summit at sunrise about 5.30. Difficult to imagine anything more exciting than the clear view of all peaks. Those near me to the South-west quickly bathed in sun and those to the South and East showing me their dark faces. To the left of our col of July 13 a beautiful sharp peak stood in front of the gap between Everest and the North Peak, Changtse. Over this col I saw the North-west b.u.t.tress of Everest hiding the lower half of the West face which must be a tremendous precipice of rock. The last summit of the South Peak, Lhotse, was immediately behind the shoulder; to the right (i.e. West) of it I saw a terrible arete stretching a long distance before it turned upwards in my direction and towards the West Peak. This mountain dropped very abruptly to the North, indicating a big gap on the far side of our col. There was the mysterious cwm lying in cold shadow long after the sun warmed me! But I now half understand it.

The col under the North-west b.u.t.tress at the head of the Rongbuk Glacier is one entrance, and our col of July 13, with how big a drop one knows not, another.

I stayed till 7 a.m. taking photos, a dozen plates exposed in all. The sky was heavy and a band of cloud had come across Everest before I left.

Back to breakfast towards 9 a.m. A pleasant morning collecting flowers, not a great variety but some delicious honey scents and an occasional cheerful blue poppy.

_July_ 17.--More trouble with our arrangements. The Sirdar has muddled the rations and the day is wasted. However, the weather is bad, constant snow showers from 1 to 8 p.m., so that I am somewhat reconciled to this reverse.

_July_ 18.--Yesterday's plan carried out--to move up a camp with light tents and make a big push over into the West cwm; eight coolies to carry the loads. But the loads have been too heavy. What can be cut out next time? I cannot see many unnecessary articles. Heavy snow showers fell as we came up and we had rather a cheerless encampment, but with much heaving of stones made good places for the tents. A glorious night before we turned in. Dark ma.s.ses of cloud were gathered round the peak above us; below, the glacier was clear and many splendid mountains were half visible. The whole scene was beautifully lit by a bright moon.

_July_ 19.--Started 3 a.m.; still some cloud, particularly to the West.

The moon just showed over the mountains in that direction which cast their strange black shadows on the snowfield. One amazing black tooth was standing up against the moonlight. No luck on the glacier and we had to put on snow-shoes at once. An exciting walk. I so much feared the cloud would spoil all. It was just light enough to get on without lanterns after the moon went down. At dawn almost everything was covered, but not by heavy clouds. Like guilty creatures of darkness surprised by the light they went scattering away as we came up and the whole scene opened out. The North ridge of Everest was clear and bright even before sunrise. We reached the col at 5 a.m., a fantastically beautiful scene; and we looked across into the West cwm at last, terribly cold and forbidding under the shadow of Everest. It was nearly an hour after sunrise before the sun hit the West Peak.

But another disappointment--it is a big drop about 1,500 feet down to the glacier, and a hopeless precipice. I was hoping to get away to the left and traverse into the cwm; that too quite hopeless. However, we have seen this Western glacier and are not sorry we have not to go up it. It is terribly steep and broken. In any case work on this side could only be carried out from a base in Nepal, so we have done with the Western side. It was not a very likely chance that the gap between Everest and the South Peak could be reached from the West. From what we have seen now I do not much fancy it would be possible, even could one get up the glacier.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOUNT EVEREST FROM THE RONGBUK GLACIER nine miles north-west.]

We saw a lovely group of mountains away to the South in Nepal. I wonder what they are and if anything is known about them. It is a big world!

With this expedition on July 19 our reconnaissance of these parts had ended. We proceeded at once to move down our belongings; on July 20 all tents and stores were brought down to the base camp and we had said good-bye to the West Rongbuk Glacier.

So far as we were concerned with finding a way up the mountain, little enough had been accomplished; and yet our growing view of the mountain had been steadily leading to one conviction. If ever the mountain were to be climbed, the way would not lie along the whole length of any one of its colossal ridges. Progress could only be made along comparatively easy ground, and anything like a prolonged sharp crest or a series of towers would inevitably bar the way simply by the time which would be required to overcome such obstacles. But the North arete coming down to the gap between Everest and the North Peak, Changtse, is not of this character. From the horizontal structure of the mountain there is no excrescence of rock pinnacles in this part and the steep walls of rock which run across the North face are merged with it before they reach this part, which is comparatively smooth and continuous, a bluntly rounded edge. We had still to see other parts of the mountain, but already it seemed unlikely that we would find more favourable ground than this. The great question before us now was to be one of access.

Could the North col be reached from the East and how could we attain this point?

At the very moment when we reached the base camp I received a note from Colonel Howard-Bury telling us that his departure from Tingri was fixed for July 23 and that he would be sleeping at Chobuk in the valley below us two days later on his way to Kharta. It was now an obvious plan to synchronise our movements with his.

Besides the branch which we had already explored the Rongbuk Glacier has yet another which joins the main stream from the East about 10 miles from Everest. It had always excited our curiosity, and I now proposed to explore it in the initial stages of a journey across the unknown ridges and valleys which separated us from Kharta. I calculated that we should want eight days' provisions, and that we should just have time to organise a camp in advance and start on the 25th with a selected party, sending down the rest to join Howard-Bury. And it was an integral part of the scheme that on one of the intervening days I should ascend a spur to the North of the glacier where we proposed to march in order to obtain a better idea of this country to the East. But we were now in the thickest of the monsoon weather; the 21st and 22nd were both wet days and we woke on the 23rd to find snow all around us nearly a foot deep; it had come down as low as 16,000 feet. It was hardly the weather to cut ourselves adrift and wander among the uncharted spurs of Everest, and we thought of delaying our start. Further it transpired that our organisation was not running smoothly--it never did run smoothly so long as we employed, as an indispensable Sirdar, a whey-faced treacherous knave whose sly and calculated villainy too often, before it was discovered, deprived our coolies of their food, and whose acquiescence in his own illimitable incompetence was only less disgusting than his infamous duplicity. It was the hopeless sense that things were bound to go wrong if we trusted to this man's services--and we had no one else at that time through whom it was possible to order supplies from the natives--that turned the scale and spoilt the plan. Even so, in the natural course of events, I should have obtained my preliminary view.

But on the night of the 22nd I received from Howard-Bury an extremely depressing piece of news, that all my photos taken with the quarter-plate camera had failed--for the good reason that the plates had been inserted back to front, a result of ignorance and misunderstanding. It was necessary as far as possible to repair this hideous error, and the next two days were spent in a photographic expedition. And so it came about that we saw no more until a much later date of the East Rongbuk Glacier. Had our plan been carried out even in the smallest part by a cursory survey of what lay ahead, I should not now have to tell a story which is lamentably incomplete in one respect.

For the East Rongbuk Glacier is one way, and the obvious way when you see it, to the North Col. It was discovered by Major Wheeler before ever we saw it, in the course of his photographic survey; but neither he, nor Bullock, nor I have ever traversed its whole length.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

We should have attached more importance, no doubt, in the early stages of reconnaissance, to the East Rongbuk Glacier had we not been deceived in two ways by appearances. It had been an early impression left in my mind, at all events, by what we saw from Shiling, that a deep valley came down to the East as the R.G.S. map suggests, draining into the Arun and having the North-east arete of Everest as its right bank at the start. Further, the head of this valley seemed to be, as one would expect, the gap between Everest and the first peak to the North which itself has also an Eastern arm to form the left bank of such a valley.

The impression was confirmed not only by an excellent view from a hill above Ponglet (two days before Tingri and about 35 miles North of Everest), but by all nearer and more recent views of the mountains East of the Rongbuk Glacier. The idea that a glacier running parallel to the Rongbuk started from the slopes of Everest itself and came so far to turn Westward in the end hardly occurred to us at this time. From anything we had seen there was no place for such a glacier, and it was almost unimaginable that the great mountain range running North from the North Col, Chang La, was in no part a true watershed. We saw the East Rongbuk Glacier stretching away to the East and perceived also a bay to the South. But how, if this bay were of any importance, could the glacier stream be so small? We had found it too large to cross, it is true, late in the afternoon of our first expedition, but only just too large; and again it seems now an unbelievable fact that so large an area of ice should give so small a volume of water. The glacier streams are remarkably small in all the country we explored, but this one far more surprisingly small than any other we saw.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUMMIT OF MOUNT EVEREST AND SOUTH PEAK from the Island, West Rongbuk Glacier.]

It was some measure of consolation in these circ.u.mstances to make use of a gleam of fine weather. When the bad news arrived on July 22 about the failure of my photographs we had ceased to hear the raindrops pattering on the tent, but could feel well enough when we pushed up the roof that snow was lying on the outer fly. It was a depressing evening. I thought of the many wonderful occasions when I had caught the mountain as I thought just at the right moment, its moments of most lovely splendour--of all those moments that would never return and of the record of all we had seen which neither ourselves nor perhaps anyone else would ever see again. I was not a cheerful companion. Moreover, from the back of my mind I was warned, even in the first despair of disappointment, that I should have to set out to repair the damage so far as I was able, and I hated the thought of this expedition. These were our days of rest after a month's high-living; we were off with one adventure and on with another; tents, stores, everything had been brought down to our base and we had said good-bye to the West Rongbuk Glacier. The clouds were still about us next morning and snow lay on the ground 9 inches deep. But by midday much of the snow had melted at our level and the clouds began to clear. At 2 p.m. we started up with the Mummery tents and stores for one night. I made my way with one coolie to a spot some little distance above our First Advanced Camp. As we pushed up the stormy hillside the last clouds gathered about Everest, and lingering in the deep North cwm were dispersed and the great white-mantled mountains lay all clear in the light of a glorious evening. Before we raced down to join Bullock my first dozen plates had been duly exposed; whatever the balance of hopes and fears for a fine morning to-morrow something had been done already to make good.

My ultimate destination was the Island which I had found before to command some of the most splendid and most instructive views. I was close up under the slopes of this little mountain before sunrise next morning. It has rarely been my lot to experience in the course of a few hours so much variety of expectation, of disappointment and of hope deferred, before the issue is decided. A pall of cloud lying like a blanket above the glacier was no good omen after the clear weather; as the sun got up a faint gleam on the ice encouraged me to go on; presently the grey clouds began to move and spread in all directions until I was enveloped and saw nothing. Suddenly the frontier crest came out and its highest peak towering fantastically above me; I turned about and saw to the West and North-west the wide glacier in the sun--beyond it Gyachung Kang and Cho-Uyo, 26,870 to 25,990 feet: but Everest remained hidden, obscured by an impenetrable cloud. I watched the changing shadows on the white snow and gazed helplessly into the grey ma.s.s continually rolled up from Nepal into the deep hollow beyond the glacier head. But a breeze came up from the East; the curtain was quietly withdrawn; Everest and the South Peak stood up against the clear blue sky. The camera was ready and I was satisfied. A few minutes later the great cloud rolled back and I saw no more.