The Project Gutenberg eBook, Climbing on the Himalaya and Other Mountain Ranges, by Norman Collie

CLIMBING ON THE HIMALAYA AND
OTHER MOUNTAIN RANGES

Printed at the Edinburgh University Press,
by T. and A. Constable,

FOR
DAVID DOUGLAS.

LONDON    SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT AND CO., LTD.

CAMBRIDGE  MACMILLAN AND BOWES.

GLASGOW   JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS.

A Stormy Sunset.

CLIMBING ON
THE HIMALAYA

AND
OTHER MOUNTAIN RANGES

BY

J. NORMAN COLLIE, F.R.S.

MEMBER OF THE ALPINE CLUB

EDINBURGH

DAVID DOUGLAS

1902

All rights reserved

PREFACE

After a book has been written, delivered to the publisher, and the proofs corrected, the author fondly imagines that little or no more is expected of him. All he has to do is to wait. In due time his child will be introduced to the world, and perhaps an enthusiastic public, by judicious comments on the virtues of the youngster, will make the parent proud of his offspring.

Before, however, this much-desired event can take place, custom demands that a preface, or an introduction of the aforesaid youngster to polite society, must be written. Unfortunately also the parent has to compile a list or index of the various items of his progeny's belongings that are of interest; so that nothing be left undone that may be of service to the young fellow, what time he makes his bow before a critical audience. In books on travel, nowadays, it is customary often somewhat to scamp this necessary duty, and, after a few remarks in the preface, on subjects not always of absorbing interest, to conclude with the hope that the reader will be as interested in the description of places he has never seen as the author has been in writing about them.

Of course, formerly these matters were better managed. In the 'Epistle Dedicatorie,' the author would at once begin with:—'To the most Noble Earle'—then with many apologies, all in the best English and most perfect taste, he, under the patronage of the aforesaid Noble Earle, would launch his venture on to the wide seas of publicity, or perhaps growing bolder, would put forth his wares with some such phrases as the following:—'And now, oh most ingenuous reader! can you find narrated many adventures, both on the high mountains of the earth, and in far countries but little known to the vulgar. Here are landscapes brought home, and so faithfully wrought, that you must confess, none but the best engravers could work them. Here, too, may'st thou find described diverse parts of thine own native land.'

'Choose that which pleaseth thee best. Not to detain thee longer, farewell; and when thou hast considered thy purchase, may'st thou say, that the price of it was but a charity to thyself, so not ill spent.'

J. N. C.

16 Campden Grove,
London, 24th March 1902

NOTE

Four of the chapters in this book have appeared before in the pages of the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal (A Chuilionn, Wastdale Head, A Reverie, and the Oromaniacal Quest). They all, however, have been partly rewritten, so the author trusts that he may be excused for offering to the public wares which are not entirely fresh.

The Fragment from a Lost MS., and part of the chapter on the Lofoten Islands, were first printed in the Alpine Journal.

The author also takes this opportunity of thanking Mr. Colin B. Phillip, first, for allowing photogravure reproductions to be made of two of his pictures (The Coolin and the Macgillicuddy's Reeks), and secondly, for the great trouble Mr. Phillip took in producing the three sketches of the Himalayan mountains which are to be found in the text.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LIST OF MAPS

CHAPTER I

GENERAL HISTORY OF MOUNTAINEERING IN THE HIMALAYA

'Let him spend his time no more at home, Which would be great impeachment to his age In having known no travel in his youth.' Shakespeare.

At some future date, how many years hence who can tell? all the wild places on the earth will have been explored. The Cape to Cairo railway will have brought the various sources of the Nile within a few days' travel of England; the endless fields of barren ice that surround the poles will have yielded up their secrets; whilst the vast and trackless fastnesses of that stupendous range of mountains which eclipses all others, and which from time immemorial has served as a barrier to roll back the waves of barbaric invasion from the fertile plains of Hindustan—these Himalaya will have been mapped, and the highest points in the world above sea-level will have been visited by man. Most certainly that time will come. Yet the Himalaya, although conquered, will remain, still they will be the greatest range of mountains on earth, but will their magnitude, their beauty, their fascination, and their mystery be the same for those who travel amongst them? I venture to think not: for it is unfortunately true that familiarity breeds contempt.

Be that as it may, at the present time an enormous portion of that country of vast peaks has never been trodden by human foot. Immense districts covered with snow and ice are yet virgin and await the arrival of the mountain explorer. His will be the satisfaction of going where others have feared to tread, his the delight of seeing mighty glaciers and superb snow-clad peaks never gazed upon before by human eyes, and his the gratification of having overcome difficulties of no small magnitude. For exploration in the Himalaya must always be surrounded by difficulties and often dangers. That which in winter on a Scotch hill would be a slide of snow, and in the Alps an avalanche, becomes amongst these giant peaks an overwhelming cataclysm shaking the solid bases of the hills, and capable with its breath alone of sweeping down forests.

A Himalayan Camp.

The man who ventures amongst the Himalaya in order that he may gain a thorough knowledge of them must of necessity be a mountaineer as well as a mountain traveller. He must delight not only in finding his way to the summits of the mountains, but also in the beauties of the green valleys below, in the bare hill-sides, and in the vast expanses of glaciers and snow and ice; moreover his curiosity must not be confined to the snows and the rock ridges merely as a means for exercising an abnormal craze for gymnastic performances, or he will show himself to be 'a creature physically specialised, perhaps, but intellectually maimed.'

For in order to cope with all the difficulties as they arise, and to guard against all the dangers that lurk amidst the snows and precipices of the great mountains, a high standard, mental as well as physical, will be required of him who sets out to explore the Himalaya: he must have had a long apprenticeship amidst the snow-peaks and possess, too, geographical instincts, common sense, and love of the mountains of no mean order.

During these latter years few sports have developed so rapidly as mountaineering; nor is this to be wondered at, for no sport is more in harmony with the personal characteristics of the Englishman. When he sets out to conquer unknown peaks, to spend his leisure time in fighting with the great mountains, it is usually no easy task he places in front of himself; but in return there is no kind of sport that affords keener enjoyments or more lasting memories than those the mountaineer wrests from Nature in his playground amongst the hills.

Mountaineering, moreover, is a sport of which we as a nation should be proud, for it is the English who have made it what it is. There are many isolated instances of men of other nationalities who have spent their time in climbing snow-peaks and fighting their way through mountainous countries; but when we inquire into the records of discovery amongst the mountain ranges of the world—in the Alps, the frosty Caucasus, the mighty Himalaya, in the Andes, in New Zealand, in Norway, wherever there are noble snow-clad mountains to climb, wherever there are difficulties to overcome—it is usually Englishmen that have led the way.

For the pure love of sport they have fought with Nature and conquered; others have followed after; and the various Alpine Clubs which have been founded during the last twenty years are witnesses of the fact that mountaineering is now one of the pastimes of the world. It has taken its place amongst our national sports, and every year sees a larger number of recruits filling the ranks.

In one volume of that splendid collection of books which could have been produced nowhere else but in England—the 'Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes'—we find Mr. C. E. Mathews writing: 'I can understand the delight of a severely contested game of tennis or rackets, or the fascination of a hard-fought cricket-match under fair summer skies. Football justly claims many votaries, and yachting has been extolled on the ground (amongst others) that it gives the maximum of appetite with the minimum of exertion. I can appreciate a straight ride across country on a good horse, and I know how the pulse beats when the University boats shoot under Barnes bridge with their bows dead level, to the music of a roaring crowd; and yet there is no sport like mountaineering.' This was written for a book on mountaineering, but it may be truthfully said, without making distinctions between sports of various kinds, all of which have their votaries, that a sport that demands from those who would excel in its pursuit the utmost efforts, both physical and mental, not for a few hours only, but day after day in sunshine and in storm—a sport whose followers have the whole of the mountain ranges of the world for their playground, where the most magnificent scenery Nature can lavish is spread before them, where success means the keenest of pleasure, and defeat is unattended by feelings of regret; where friendships are made which would have been impossible under other circumstances—for on the mountains the difficulties and the dangers shared in common by all are the surest means for showing a man as he really is—a sport which renews our youth, banishes all sordid cares, ministers to mind and body diseased, invigorating and restoring the whole—surely such a sport can be second to none!

But as access to the Alps and other snow ranges becomes easier year by year, the mountaineer, should he wish to test his powers against the unclimbed hills, must perforce go further afield. There are still, however, unclimbed mountains enough and to spare for many years yet to come.

In the Himalaya the peaks exceeding 24,000 feet in height, that have been measured, number over fifty,[A] whilst those above 20,000 feet may be counted by the thousand. Every year, officers of the Indian Army and others in search of game wander through the valleys which come down from the great ranges, but up to the present time only a few mountaineering expeditions have been made to this marvellous mountain land. For this there are many reasons. The distance of India from England precludes the busy man from spending his summer vacation there; the natural difficulties of the country, the lack of provisions, the total absence of roads, and lastly, the disturbed political conditions, make any ordinary expedition impossible. Moreover, although the English are supposed to hold the southern slopes of the Himalaya, yet it is a curious fact that almost from the eastern end of this range in Bhutan to the western limit in the Hindu Kush above Chitral we are rigorously excluded. About the eastern portion of the Himalaya in Bhutan, and the mountains surrounding the gorge through which the Bramaputra flows, we know very little, as only some of the higher peaks have been surveyed from a distance. Next in order, to the westward, comes Sikkim, one of the few districts in the Himalaya where Europeans can safely travel under the very shadows of the great peaks. Next comes the native state of Nepaul, stretching for five hundred miles, the borders of which no white man can cross, except those who are sent by the Indian Government as political agents, etc., to the capital, Katmandu. It is evident at once to any one looking at the map of India, that Nepaul and Bhutan hold the keys of the doors through which Chinese trade might come south. The breaks in the main chain in many places allow of trade-routes, and in times gone by even Chinese armies have poured through these passes and successfully invaded Nepaul.

The idea of establishing friendly relations between India and this Trans-Himalayan region was one of the many wise and far-reaching political aspirations of Warren Hastings. On it he spent much of his time and thought. His policy was carried out consistently during the time he was Governor-General of India, and commercial intercourse during that period seemed to be well established. Four separate embassies were sent to Bhutan, one of which extended its operations to Tibet. This first British Mission to penetrate beyond the Himalaya was that under Mr. George Bogle in 1774. But on the removal of Warren Hastings from India, these admirable methods of establishing a friendly acquaintance with the powers in Bhutan and Tibet were at once abandoned. It is true that a quarter of a century later, in 1811, Mr. Thomas Manning, a private individual, performed the extraordinary feat of reaching Lhasa, and saw the Dalai Lama, a feat that to this day has not been repeated by an Englishman. But when the guiding hand and head of Warren Hastings no longer ruled India, this commercial policy sank into complete oblivion. From that day to the present little intercourse of any kind seems to have been held between the English Government and those states in that border land between India and China.[B]

On the west of Nepaul lie Kumaon, Garhwal, Kulu, and Spiti. Through most of these districts the Englishman can wander, which is also the case with Kashmir to a certain extent.

The sources of the rivers that emerge from these Himalayan mountains are almost unknown, except in the case of the Ganges, which rises in the Gangootri peaks in Garhwal. The upper waters of the Indus, the Sutlej, the Bramaputra (or Sanpu), and the numberless rivers emerging from Nepaul and flowing into the Ganges, in almost every case come from beyond the range we call the Himalaya. Their sources lie in that unknown land north of the so-called main chain. Whether there is a loftier and more magnificent range behind is at present doubtful, but reports of higher peaks further north than Devadhunga (Mount Everest) reach us from time to time. The Indian Government occasionally sends out trained natives from the survey department to collect information about these districts where Englishmen are forbidden to go, and it is to their efforts that the various details we find on maps relating to these countries are due. Some day the lower ranges leading up to the great snow-covered mountains will be opened to the English. Sanatoria will be established, tea plantations will appear on the slopes of the Nepaulese hills, as is now the case at Darjeeling, and then only will the exploration of the mountains really begin, for which, at the present day, as far as Tibet and Nepaul are concerned, we have even less facilities than the Schlagintweits and Hooker had forty to fifty years ago.

From the mountaineer's point of view, little has been accomplished amongst the Himalaya, and of the thousands of peaks of 20,000 feet and upwards hardly twenty have been climbed. The properly equipped expeditions made to these mountains merely for the sport of mountaineering may be said to be less than half a dozen. Of course the officers in charge of the survey department have done invaluable work, which, however, often had to be carried out by men unacquainted (from a purely climbing point of view) with the higher developments of mountain craft. To this, however, there are exceptions, notably Mr. W. H. Johnson, who worked on the Karakoram range.

To omit work done by the earlier travellers, the first prominent piece of mountaineering seems to have been achieved by Captain Gerard in the Spiti district. In the year 1818 he attempted the ascent of Leo Porgyul, but was unsuccessful after reaching a height of 19,400 feet (trigonometrically surveyed). Ten years later he made the first successful ascent of a mountain (unnamed) of 20,400 feet. Speaking of his wanderings in 1817-21, he says: 'I have visited thirty-seven places at different times between 14,000 and 19,400 feet, and thirteen of my camps were upwards of 15,000 feet.' During the years 1848-49-50 Sir Joseph Hooker made his famous journeys into the Himalaya from Darjeeling through Sikkim. Obtaining leave to travel in East Nepaul, he traversed a district that since then has been entirely closed to Europeans. By travelling to the westward of Darjeeling he crossed into Nepaul, explored the Tambur river as far as Wallanchoon, whence he ascended to the head of a snow pass, 16,756 feet, leading over to the valley of the Arun river, which rises far away northward of Kanchenjunga. On the pass he experienced his first attack of mountain sickness, suffering from headache, giddiness, and lassitude. At this point he was probably nearer to Devadhunga[C] (Mount Everest) than any European has ever been, the mountain being only fifty miles away. From the summit of another pass in East Nepaul, the Choonjerma pass, 16,000 feet, he no doubt saw Devadhunga. From here he returned to Sikkim, and travelled to Mon Lepcha, immediately at the south-west of Kanchenjunga. During the next year he visited the passes on the north-east of Kanchenjunga leading into Tibet and ascended three of them, the Kongra Lama pass, 15,745 feet; the Tunkra pass, 16,083 feet; and the Donkia pass, 18,500 feet. From Bhomtso, 18,590 feet, the highest and most northerly point reached by him, a magnificent view to the northward into Tibet was obtained; and Dr. Hooker mentions having seen from this point two immense mountains over one hundred miles distant to the north of Nepaul. It was during his return to Darjeeling that he and Dr. Campbell were made prisoners by the Raja of Sikkim.

During the years 1854-58 the two brothers, Adolf and Robert Schlagintweit wandered through a large portion of the Himalaya. They were the first explorers who possessed any real knowledge of snow work, having gained their experience in the Alps. Starting from Nynee Tal they followed the Pindar river to its source, just under the southern slopes of Nanda Devi. Then crossing to the north-east by a pass about 17,700 feet high, they reached Milam on the Gori river, whence they penetrated into Tibet over several passes averaging 18,000 feet. In this district, never since visited by Europeans, they made more than one glacier expedition, finally returning over the main chain, close to Kamet or Ibi Gamin (25,443 feet), on the slopes of which they remained for a fortnight, their highest camp being at 19,326 feet. An unsuccessful attempt was made on the peak, for they were forced to retreat after having reached an altitude of 22,259 feet. Returning over the Mana pass to the valley of the Sarsuti river, they descended to Badrinath. The upper valley of the Indus north of Kashmir was next explored, and Adolf, having crossed the Karakoram pass, was murdered at Kashgar.[D] In the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal (vol. xxxv.) will be found a paper by the two brothers on the 'Comparative Hypsometrical and Physical Features of High Asia, the Andes, and the Alps,' which deals in a most interesting manner with the respective features of these several mountain ranges.

In the years 1860-1865 Mr. W. H. Johnson, whilst engaged on the Kashmir Survey, established a large number of trigonometrical stations at a height of over 20,000 feet. One of his masonry platforms on the top of a peak 21,500 feet high is said to be visible from Leh in Ladâk. The highest point he probably reached was during an expedition made from the district Changchenmo north of the Pangong lake in the year 1864. Travelling northwards he made his way through the mountains to the Yarkand road, and at one point, being unable to proceed, he found it necessary to climb over the mountain range at a height of 22,300 feet, where the darkness overtook him, and he was forced to spend the night at 22,000 feet. In the next year, 1865, on his journey to Khutan he was obliged to wait for permission to enter Turkestan; and being anxious to obtain as much knowledge of the country to the north as possible, he climbed three peaks—E⁵⁷, 21,757 feet; E⁵⁸, 21,971 feet; and E⁶¹, 23,890 feet (?). The heights of the first two mountains have been accurately determined by a series of trigonometrical observations, but there has probably been some error made in the height of the last, E⁶¹.

Mr. Johnson was a most enthusiastic mountaineer, and, owing to a suggestion made by him and Mr. Drew to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, efforts were made in 1866 to form a Himalayan Club, but through want of support and sympathy the club was never started. Mountaineering was indeed in those days so little appreciated by the political department of India that this journey of Mr. Johnson's in 1865 was made the excuse for a reprimand, owing to which he left the Service and took employment under the Maharaja of Kashmir.

About the same time that Johnson was exploring the district to the north and north-east of Ladák, the officers of the survey, Captain T. G. Montgomerie, H. H. Godwin Austen, and others, were actively at work on the Astor Gilgit and Skardu districts. They pushed glacier exploration much further than had been done before; and it is quite remarkable how much they accomplished when one considers that in those days climbers had only just learned the use of ice-axes and ropes, and the knowledge of ice and snow even in the Alps was very limited. The exploration of the Baltoro glacier, the discovery of the second highest peak in the Himalaya—K², 28,278 feet—and the peaks Gusherbrum and Masherbrum, by H. H. Godwin Austen, and his ascent of the Punmah glacier to the old Mustagh pass will remain as marvels of mountain exploration.

In the next ten or fifteen years but little mountaineering was done in the Himalaya. The Government Survey in Garhwal, Kumaon, and Sikkim was carried on, and more correct maps of the mountain ranges in these parts were issued. On Kamet about 22,000 feet was reached. In Sikkim, Captain Harman, during his work for the survey, made several attempts to climb some of the loftier peaks. He revisited the Donkia pass, and, like Dr. Hooker, saw from it the two enormous peaks far away to the north of Nepaul. In order to measure their height trigonometrically, he remained on the summit of the pass (18,500 feet) all night, but unfortunately was so severely frost-bitten that ultimately he was invalided home.

In the year 1883 Mr. W. W. Graham started for India with the Swiss guide Joseph Imboden, on a purely mountaineering expedition; he first went to Sikkim, then attacked the group round Nanda Devi in Garhwal, and later returned to Sikkim and the mountains near Kanchenjunga.

This expedition of Graham's remains still the most successful mountaineering effort that has been made amongst the Himalaya. No less than seven times was he above 20,000 feet on the mountains, the three highest ascents being, Kabru (Sikkim), 24,015 feet, A²¹ or Mount Monal (Garhwal), 22,516 feet, and a height of 22,500-22,700 feet on Dunagiri (Garhwal). It is perhaps to be regretted that Graham did not write a book setting forth in detail all his experiences, though a short account of his travels and ascents may be found in vol. xii. of the Alpine Club Journal.

Arriving at Darjeeling early in 1883, he and Imboden made their way to Jongri just under Kanchenjunga on the south-west, and climbed a peak, Kang La, 20,300 feet. The Guicho La (pass), 16,000 feet, between Kanchenjunga and Pundim, was ascended, but as the end of March was much too early in the year for climbing, they returned to Darjeeling, and Imboden then went back to Europe. It was not till the end of June that Graham was joined by Emil Boss and Ulrich Kauffmann, who came out from Grindelwald. They started from Nynee Tal to attack Nanda Devi, travelling to Rini on the Dhauli river, just to the westward of Nanda Devi. From Rini they proceeded up the Rishiganga, which runs down from the glaciers on the west of Nanda Devi, but they were stopped in the valley by an impassable gorge that had been cut by a glacier descending from the Trisuli peaks. Obliged to retreat, they next attacked Dunagiri, 23,184 feet; after climbing over two peaks, 17,000 and 18,000 feet, they camped at 18,400 feet, and finally got to a point from which they could see the top of A²², 21,001 feet over the top of A²¹, 22,516 feet, and must therefore have been at least at a height of 22,700 feet. Unfortunately hail, wind, and snow drove Graham and Boss off the peak within 500 feet of the top—Kauffmann had given in some distance lower down—and it was only with difficulty that they were able to return to their camp, which was reached in the dark.

The weather then obliged them to return to Rini, from which place they again started for Nanda Devi. This time they went up the north bank of the Rishiganga. After illness, the desertion of their coolies, and all the sufferings produced by cold and wet weather, they reached the glacier in four days, only to find that again they were cut off from it by a perpendicular cliff of 200 feet, down which the glacier torrent poured. Their attempt to cross the stream was also fruitless; so, baffled for the second time, they were forced to return to their camping-ground under Dunagiri at Dunassau, from which place they climbed A²¹, 22,516 feet, by the western ridge, calling it Mount Monal. They then tried A²², 21,001 feet, but were stopped by difficult rocks after reaching a point about 20,000 feet. By the middle of August Graham was back again in Sikkim and got to Jongri by September 2. With Boss and Kauffmann he explored the west side of Kabru and the glacier which comes down from Kanchenjunga. But the weather was continuously bad; they started to climb Jubonu, but were turned back. Then they crossed the Guicho La to ascend Pundim, but found it impossible; more bad weather kept them idle till the end of the month. They then managed to ascend Jubonu, 21,300 feet. A few days later they went up the glacier which lies on the south-east of Kabru, camping at 18,400 feet; and starting at 4.30 A.M. they succeeded, owing to a favourable state of the mountain, in reaching the summit, 24,015 feet (or rather, the summit being cleft into three gashes, they got into one of these, about 30 feet from the true top). It was not till 10 P.M. that they returned to their camp. The last peak they ascended was one 19,000 feet on the Nepaul side of the Kang La. Thus ended this most remarkable series of ascents, carried out often under the most difficult circumstances. Graham, from his account of his travels, was evidently not a man to talk about all the discomforts and hardships of climbing at these altitudes, and this lack of information about his feelings and sensations above 20,000 feet has been urged against him as a proof that he never got to 24,000 feet at all. But any one who will take the trouble to read his account of the ascent of Kabru, cannot fail to admit that he must have climbed the peak lying on the south-west of Kanchenjunga, viz. Kabru, for there is no other high peak there which he could have ascended from his starting-point except Kanchenjunga itself; moreover, unless he had climbed Kabru, neither he nor Emil Boss could have seen Devadhunga nor the two enormous peaks to the north-west, which they distinctly state must be higher than Devadhunga. Now, if they climbed Kabru, they were at a height of 24,000 feet whether they had a barometer with them or not, for that is the height determined by the Ordnance Survey. The heights reached in all their other completed ascents are vouched for in the same way, for if a mountain has been properly measured by triangulation, its height is known with a greater degree of accuracy than can ever be obtained by taking a barometer to the summit.

The next real mountaineering expedition after that of Graham was in 1892, when Sir Martin Conway, together with Major Bruce, and M. Zurbriggen as guide, explored a large part of the Mustagh range. In all they made some sixteen ascents to heights of 16,000 feet and upwards, the highest being Pioneer peak, 22,600 feet.

Arriving at Gilgit in May, when much winter snow still lay low down on the mountains, they first explored the Bagrot nullah. Here they ascended several glaciers and surveyed the country. But huge avalanches continually falling entirely stopped any high climbing. They therefore went into the Hunza Nagyr valley as far as Nagyr. In the meantime, as the weather was bad, they investigated first the Samayar and afterwards the Shallihuru glaciers. At the head of the former a pass was climbed, the Daranshi saddle, 17,940 feet, and a peak called the Dasskaram needle, 17,660 feet. They then returned to the Nagyr valley and reached the foot of the great Hispar glacier, 10,320 feet. From here they travelled to the Hispar pass, 17,650 feet, nearly forty miles, thence down the Biafo glacier, another thirty miles. The Hispar pass is therefore the longest snow pass traversed outside the Arctic regions. About half way up the Hispar glacier Bruce left Conway and climbed over the Nushik La, but joined him again later at Askole.

From Askole the Baltoro glacier was ascended. Near its head the summit of Crystal peak, 19,400 feet, on the north side of the valley, was reached. From the summit, the Mustagh tower, a rival in height to K², 28,278 feet, was seen. To quote Conway's description: 'Away to the left, peering over a neighbouring rib like the one we were ascending, rose an astonishing tower. Its base was buried in clouds, and a cloud-banner waved on one side of it, but the bulk was clear, and the right-hand outline was a vertical cliff. We afterwards discovered that it was equally vertical on the other side. This peak rises in the immediate vicinity of the Mustagh pass, and is one of the most extraordinary mountains for form we anywhere beheld.'

Two days later they made another climb on a ridge to the east, and parallel to the one previously climbed. From here they first saw K². Amongst the magnificent circle of peaks that surrounded them at this spot, many of which were over 25,000 feet, one only seemed to offer any chance of being climbed. This was the Golden Throne. It stands at the head of the Baltoro glacier, differing greatly in form and structure from its neighbours; and of all the mountains it seemed most accessible.

Amongst, however, the enormous glaciers and snow-fields that eclipse probably those of any other mountains in ordinary latitudes, even to arrive at the beginning of the climbing was a problem of much difficulty. To again quote: 'We struggled round the base of the Golden Throne, up 2000 feet of ice-fall to a plateau where we camped; then we forced a camp on to a second, and again on to a third platform ... we got daily weaker as we ascended ... we finally reached the foot of the ridge which was to lead us, as we supposed, to the top of the Golden Throne. It was an ice-ridge, and not as we hoped of snow, and it did not lead us to the top but to a detached point in the midst of the two main buttresses of the Throne.' This peak they named Pioneer peak, 22,600 feet. After this climb they returned to Kashmir.

Major Bruce, who accompanied Sir M. Conway in this expedition, has been climbing in the Himalaya for many years. In 1893, whilst at Chitral with Capt. F. Younghusband, he ascended Ispero Zorn. In July of the same year he made several ascents near Hunza on the Dhaltar peaks—the highest point reached being 18,000 feet. During August of the same year he climbed to 17,000 feet above Phekkar near Nagyr, with Captain B. E. M. Gurdon, and even in December, at Dharmsala, he had some mountaineering.

Major Bruce has done some excellent mountaineering in a district that may be said to be his alone, namely in Khaghan, a district south-west of Nanga Parbat and north of Abbottabad. Here, in company with Harkabir Thapa and other Gurkhas, a great deal of climbing has been accomplished, the district having been visited almost every year since 1894.

The best piece of climbing in Khaghan was the ascent of the most northern Ragee-Bogee peaks (16,700 feet), by Harkabir Thapa alone. This peak is close to the Shikara pass, though separated by one peak from it.

Another district visited by Major Bruce in 1898 was in Ladák east of Kashmir—the Nun Kun range. Several new passes were traversed, and peaks up to 19,500 feet were climbed.[E]

There is certainly no mountaineer who has a record of Himalayan climbing to compare with Major Bruce's, ranging as it does from Chitral on the west to Sikkim on the east. In fact, to show how the mountains exercise a magnetic influence on him, in the summer of 1898 he saw, what no one had ever seen before, in the short space of two months, the three highest mountains in the world: Devadhunga, K², and Kanchenjunga.

In 1898 Dr. and Mrs. Bullock Workman traversed several passes in Ladák, Nubra, and Suru; and in 1899, with M. Zurbriggen as guide, went to Askole and up the Biafo glacier to the Hispar Pass. Then they climbed the Siegfried Horn, 18,600 feet, and Mount Bullock-Workman, 19,450 feet, both near the Skoro La. Afterwards, returning to the Shigar valley, Mount Koser Gunge, 21,000 feet, was ascended.

The last mountaineering expedition to the Himalaya was that of Mr. Douglas Freshfield, who, in company with Signor V. Sella, Mr. E. Garwood, and A. Maquignaz as guide, made the tour of Kanchenjunga, crossing the Jonsong La, 21,000 feet.

CHAPTER II

OUR JOURNEY OUT TO NANGA PARBAT

'And go Eastward along the sea, to mount the lands Beyond man's dwelling, and the rising steeps That face the sun untrodden and unnamed.— Know to earth's verge remote thou then art come, The Scythian tract and wilderness forlorn, Through whose rude rocks and frosty silences No path shall guide thee then, ... There as thou toilest o'er the treacherous snows.' R. Bridges.

Amongst mountaineers, who has not at some time or another looked at the map of India, wishing at the same time for an opportunity to visit the Himalaya? to see Kanchenjunga, Devadhunga, Nanda Devi, Nanga Parbat, or any of the hundreds of snow-clad mountains, every one of which is higher than the loftiest peaks of other lands? to wander through the valleys filled with tropical vegetation until the higher grounds are reached, where the great glaciers lie like frozen rivers amidst the white mountains, while the green pasturages and pine woods below bask in the sunshine? to travel through the land where all natural things are on a big scale, a land of great rivers and mighty mountains, a land where even the birds and beasts are of larger size, a land that was peopled many centuries ago with civilised races, when Western Europe was in a state of barbarism? But these Himalaya are far away, and often as one may wish some day to start for this marvellous land, yet the propitious day never dawns, and less ambitious journeys are all that the Fates will allow. Although it had seemed most unlikely that I should ever be fortunate enough to visit the Himalaya, yet at last the time arrived when my dream became a reality. I have seen the great mountains of the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram ranges, from Tirach Mir over Chitral to K² at the head of the Baltoro glacier; I have wandered in that waste land, the marvellous gorge of the Indus. I have stopped at Chilas, one of the outposts of civilisation in the wild Shinaki country, where not many years ago no white man could venture. I have passed through the defile at Lechre, where in 1841 a landslip from the northern buttress of Nanga Parbat dammed back the whole Indus for six months, until finally the pent-up masses of water, breaking suddenly through the thousands of feet of debris, burst with irresistible force down through that unknown mountain-land lying below Chilas for many hundreds of miles, till at last the whirling flood, no longer hemmed in by the hills, swept out on to the open plains near Attock, and in one night annihilation was the fate of a whole Sikh army. Also I have seen the northern side of the mighty Nanga Parbat, the greatest mountain face in the whole world, rising without break from the scorching sands of the Bunji plain, first to the cool pine woods and fertile valleys five thousand feet above, next to the glaciers, and further back and higher to the ice-clad avalanche-swept precipices which ring round the topmost snows of Nanga Parbat itself, whose summit towers 26,629 feet above sea-level, and 23,000 feet above the Indus at its base: whilst further to the northward Rakipushi and Haramosh, both 25,000 feet high, seem only to be outlying sentinels of grander and loftier ranges behind.

It was in 1894 that the late Mr. A. F. Mummery and Mr. G. Hastings arranged that if they could obtain permission from the Indian Government to visit that part of Kashmir in which Nanga Parbat lies, they would start from England in June 1895, and attempt the ascent. Early in 1895 I made such arrangements (owing to the kindness of Professor Ramsay of London University College) that I was able to join the expedition.

We left England on June 20, joining the P. and O. steamer Caledonia at Brindisi. The voyage was delightful till we left Aden—even in the Red Sea the temperature never rising above 90°,—but once in the Indian Ocean we experienced the full force of the monsoon; and it was exceedingly rough from there to Bombay, which we reached on July 5. Two days later we arrived at Rawul Pindi, having had a very hot journey on the railway, a maximum of 103° being experienced between Umballa and Rawul Pindi.

At the latter place the foothills of the Himalaya were seen for the first time, rising out of the plains of the Panjab. And that night, amidst a terrific thunderstorm, the breaking of the monsoon on the hills, we slept in dak bungalow just short of Murree. From Rawul Pindi to Baramula, in the vale of Kashmir, an excellent road exists, along which one is able to travel in a tonga. These strongly built two-wheel carriages complete the journey of about one hundred and seventy miles in two or three days. Owing, however, to the monsoon rain, we found the road in many places in a perilous condition. Bridges had been washed away, great boulders many feet thick had rolled down the mountain-side sometimes to find a resting-place in the middle of the road, sometimes to go crashing through it; in one place the whole mountain-side was slowly moving down, road and all, into the Jhelum river below at the bottom of the valley. But on the evening of July 9 we safely reached Baramula.

J. Bartholomew & Co., Edin^r.

Beyond Baramula it is necessary to take a flat-bottomed boat or punt, called a dunga, traversing the vale of Kashmir by water. This valley of Kashmir, about which so much has been written, is beyond all adequate description. Situated as it is, 6000 feet above sea-level, in an old lake basin amongst the Himalaya, its climate is almost perfect. A land of lakes and waterways, splendid trees and old ruins, vines, grass-lands, flowers, and pine forests watered by cool streams from the snow ranges that encircle it, with a climate during the summer months like that of the south of France—no wonder this valley of Kashmir is beautiful.

In length about eighty miles, and twenty-five miles in breadth, it lies surrounded by giant peaks. Haramukh, 16,903 feet, is quite close; to the eastward rise the Nun Kun peaks, 23,447 feet; whilst to the north Nanga Parbat, 26,629 feet high, can be seen from the hill stations. The atmospheric colours in the clear air are for ever changing, and no better description of them can be given than one by Walter R. Lawrence in his classical work on the Valley of Kashmir, where as settlement officer he spent several years. He says, 'In the early morning the mountains are often a delicate semi-transparent violet, relieved against a saffron sky and with light vapours clinging round their crests. Then the rising sun deepens shadows and produces sharp outlines and strong passages of purple and indigo in the deep ravines. Later on it is nearly all blue and lavender with white snow peaks and ridges under a vertical sun, and as the afternoon wears on these become richer violet and pale bronze, gradually changing to rose and pink with yellow and orange snow, till the last rays of the sun have gone, leaving the mountains dyed a ruddy crimson, with snows showing a pale creamy green by contrast. Looking downward from the mountains, the valley in the sunshine has the hues of the opal; the pale reds of the Karéwá, the vivid light greens of the young rice, and the darker shades of the groves of trees, relieved by sunlit sheets, gleams of water, and soft blue haze, give a combination of tints reminding one irresistibly of the changing hues of that gem. It is impossible to do justice to the beauty and the grandeur of the mountains of Kashmir, or to enumerate the lovely glades and forests visited by so few.'

Nowadays Kashmir is a prosperous country. But before the settlement operations were taken in hand (1887) by Lawrence the country-people were suffering from every kind of abuse and tyranny. Now it is all changed, and under the rule of Maharaja Pratab Singh, who resolved that this settlement should be carried out and gave it his loyal support, the country-folk are contented and prosperous; the fields are properly cultivated, without fear that the harvest will be reaped by some extortionate official; the houses are rebuilt, and the orchards, gardens, and vineyards are well looked after. It was not till my return from the mountains that I had a chance of spending a few days in this fascinating valley.

After leaving Baramula our route lay for some time up the Jhelum river, which drains most of the vale of Kashmir; but soon we emerged on the Woolar lake, and in the grey morning light the hills that completely encircle the valley could be partly seen through the long streams of white mist that draped them. The lake was perfectly calm, and reflected on its surface the nearer hills. Soon we came to miles of floating water-lilies in bloom, whilst on the banks quaint mud houses and farms, encircled with poplar, walnut, and chenar trees, were visible; and, beyond, great distances of grass lands and orchards stretched back to the mountains.

But we were not across the lake. From the westward a rain-cloud was approaching, and soon the whole face of nature was changed. Small waves arose; then a blast of wind swept down part of the matting which served as an awning to our boat, and in a moment we were in danger of being swamped. The rowers at once began to talk wildly, evidently in great fear of drowning. Several other dungas, which were near and in the same plight as our own, came up, so all the boats were lashed together by ropes. Meanwhile the women and children (for the Kashmiri lives on the dunga with his wife and family) were screaming and throwing rice on the troubled waters, presumably to propitiate the evil beings who were responsible for the perilous state of affairs, and seemingly this offering to the gods was effective, for the angry deity, the storm-cloud, passed on, the wind dropped, and without further adventure we made land at Bandipur on the northern shore of the lake in warm sunshine.

Here we found ponies which had been hired for us by Major C. G. Bruce of the 5th Gurkhas. He had travelled all the way from Khaghan to Kashmir in order to engage servants, ponies, etc., and had spent a fortnight out of a month's leave in arranging these matters for us who were strangers to him. Since that time I have seen much more of Bruce, but I shall always remember this kindness. I may also say that during the whole of our expedition the military and political officers, and others whom we met, invariably helped us in every way possible.

On July 11 we loaded the ponies with our baggage and started for Nanga Parbat. Our route lay over the Tragbal or Raj Diangan pass, 11,950 feet. On the further side we descended to Kanjalwan in the valley of the Kishnganga river. Up this valley about twelve miles is the village of Gurais, where we were nearly stopped by the tahsildar, a most important village official. We wanted more ponies, which he of course promised, but next morning they were not forthcoming. Messages were useless, and seemingly persuasion also was of no avail, he assuring us that there were no ponies, and telling us every kind of lie with the utmost oriental politeness. Mummery was, however, equal to the occasion. He wrote out a telegram, which of course he never intended to send, the contents of which he had translated to the tahsildar. It was addressed to the British Resident at Srinagar, asking what should be done with a miserable official at Gurais who would give us neither help nor ponies. The effect was magical. In less than ten minutes we had three times as many ponies as we wanted, and that too in a district where everything with four legs was being pressed into the service of the Gilgit commissariat. The tahsildar rode several miles up the valley with us, finally insisting that Mummery should ride his pony, and return it after two or three days when convenient.

Just above Gurais we left the valley of the Kishnganga, and turned to the left or north-east up the valley of the Burzil. From this valley two passes lead over the range into the country that drains down the Astor nullah to the Indus: the first is the Kamri, 12,438 feet, the second the Burzil or Dorikoon pass, 13,900 feet, over which the military road to Gilgit has been made. Both these passes ultimately lead to Astor. We chose the Kamri, for we were told that better forage for our ponies could be obtained on the northern slopes. We crossed the pass on July 14, finding still some of the winter snows unmelted on the top.

From the summit we had our first view of Nanga Parbat, over forty miles away, but rising in dazzling whiteness far above all the intervening ranges. There is nothing in the Alps that can at all compare with it in grandeur, and although often one is unable to tell whether a mountain is really big, or only appears so, this was not the case with Nanga Parbat as seen from the Kamri. It was huge, immense; and instinctively we took off our hats in order to show that we approached in a proper spirit.

Two days later we camped at Rattu, where we found Lieutenant C. G. Stewart encamped with his mountain battery. He showed us the guns (weighing 2 cwt. each) which he had taken over the Shandur pass in deep snow when accompanying Colonel Kelly from Gilgit to the relief of Chitral. During this passage he became snow-blind.

The forcing of the Shandur pass was one of the hardest pieces of work in the whole of the relief of Chitral, and the moral effect produced was invaluable. For the Chitralis were under the impression that even troops without guns could not cross the pass. Imagine their consternation when a well-equipped force, together with a mountain battery, was at the head of the Mastuj river leading down to Chitral.

After we had been hospitably entertained by Lieutenant Stewart, and duly admired his splendid mule battery, we left the next day, July 16, and finally, in the dark that night, camped at the base of Nanga Parbat. During the day the ponies that we had hired only came as far as a village named Zaipur, where we paid off our men, and sent them and the ponies back to Bandipur.

We did not, however, wish to camp at Zaipur, which lay on the south side of the Rupal torrent, but were anxious to cross to Chorit, a village opposite, and then go on to Tashing. How this was to be accomplished was not at first sight very plain. But the villagers were most willing to help, and those of the Chorit village came down on the further bank, in all about fifty to sixty men. Then bridge-building began; tons of stones and brushwood were built out into the raging glacier torrent; next pine trunks were neatly fixed on the cantilever system in these piers on both sides, and when the two edifices jutted far enough out into the stream, several thick pine trunks, about fifty feet long, were toppled across, and prevented from being washed down the stream by our Alpine ropes, which were tied to their smaller ends. Several of these trunks were then placed across between the two piers, and after three hours' hard work the bridge was finished. For this magnificent engineering achievement the headmen of the two villages were presented with two rupees. We did not camp at Tashing, but crossed the glacier immediately above the village, and in a hollow amongst a grove of willows set up our tents.

We had taken twenty-seven days from London travelling continuously, but the weather was perfect. We were on the threshold of the unknown, and the untrodden nullahs round Nanga Parbat awaited us.

CHAPTER III

THE RUPAL NULLAH

'And thus these threatening ranges of dark mountain, which, in nearly all ages of the world, men have looked upon with aversion or with terror, are, in reality, sources of life and happiness far fuller and more beneficent than the bright fruitfulnesses of the plain.'—Modern Painters.

Our camp in the Rupal nullah was certainly most picturesque, pitched on a slightly sloping bank of grass, strewn with wildflowers and surrounded by a species of willow-tree which, during the hot midday sunshine, afforded most welcome shade. Firewood could be easily obtained in abundance from the dead stems and branches of the thicket, and water from a babbling stream which descended from the lower slopes of Nanga Parbat, almost within a stone's-throw of our tents.

Determined after our week's walk from Bandipur to make the most of our delightful camp, we spent the next day, July 17, in blissful laziness, doing hardly anything. We pretended now and again to busy ourselves with the tents and the baggage. A willow branch which hung in front of our tent door would need breaking off, or a rope tightening. But the day was really a holiday, and our most serious occupation was to bask in the warm sunshine and inhale the keen, bracing mountain air fresh from the snow-fields at the head of the Rupal nullah.

A Himalayan Nullah.

The sense of absolute freedom, of perfect contentment with our present lot, blessed gift of the mountains to their true and faithful devotees, was beginning to steal over us. Languidly we talked about the morrow, our only regret arising from our inability to catch a glimpse of that monarch of the mountains, Nanga Parbat, and the ice-fringed precipices which overhang his southern face.

The Rupal is the largest nullah close to Nanga Parbat. It runs eastwards from the peaks by the Thosho pass under the whole southern face of Nanga Parbat, till it joins the valley coming down from the Kamri pass, some eight miles below Tashing. The total length is about twenty-five miles in a straight line, but only those who have wandered in these Himalayan nullahs know how that twenty-five miles can be lengthened. The interminable ups and downs, which with endless repetition confront the traveller, now descending on to glaciers by steep moraine walls, now scrambling over loose stones and debris, or crossing from one side of the nullah to the other, all the variations which a mountain path strews with such prodigality in the way, set measurement at defiance, and no man may tell the true length of a nullah twenty-five miles long. The inhabitants are wise; they speak only of a day's journey, and later we easily dropped into their ways, miles being hardly ever mentioned. In fact, to show how deceptive measurement by the map may be, when late in August we left the Diamirai nullah with the whole of our camp baggage to reach the next big nullah, the Rakiot, the traverse over two easy passes just below the snow-line took us no less than three days from early in the morning till late at night, though the distance as the crow flies is only ten miles.

Tashing, the village, which lay a few miles below us down the valley, is large and prosperous, the peasants owning many flocks and herds. Chickens, eggs, and milk are plentiful, and situated as it is some distance from the Gilgit road, any surplus stock of provisions is not depleted to the same extent as is the case with hamlets in the Astor valley. Sheep, which are small and not easy to obtain at Astor, may be purchased without difficulty at Tashing. Not many years ago Tashing used to be periodically raided by the Chilas tribesmen, who lived on the western slopes of the Nanga Parbat range. They, like the old border thieves, would swarm over the Mazeno and Thosho passes and lift all the sheep and goats they could find, sometimes even taking the women as well. This, however, is now completely stopped since we 'pacified' Chilas. Mountain robbers of course still harass the land, but they have been driven further to the westward, and now it is the Chilas folk themselves who are the victims. In fact we heard later that at the end of July the tribesmen from Kohistan and Thur (to the south-west of Chilas) were pillaging the country at the head of the Bunar and Barbusar nullahs, where they had killed several shepherds and driven away their flocks.

J. Bartholomew & Co. Edin^r.

The Rupal nullah above Tashing is fairly fertile, the vegetation stretching up a considerable distance. Pine-trees and small brushwood flourish at the foot of the Rupal or main glacier, whilst for several miles further on the north side of the valley grass and dwarf rhododendron bushes grow. The glaciers from Nanga Parbat sweep across the valley much in the same way as the Brenva glacier sweeps across the Val Véni, cutting off the upper pasturages from the villages below. Of course the highest peak in the neighbourhood is Nanga Parbat itself. But those on the south-west of the Rupal nullah, rising as they do some 7000 to 8000 feet above the floor of the valley, present a most magnificent spectacle. One especially (marked 20,730 feet) which stands alone at the head of the nullah, charms the eye with its beautiful form and exquisite lines of snow and rock. We christened it the Rupal peak, whilst its neighbour further west, almost its equal in size (20,640 feet), we named the Thosho peak.

Another summit (20,490 feet) to the eastward might, as it stands at the head of the Chiche nullah, appropriately be termed the Chiche peak, and the glacier which descends from it to the end of the Rupal glacier, the Chiche glacier. A very good idea of the relative size and form of the great main range of Nanga Parbat on the north side of the Rupal nullah may be obtained from the top of the Kamri pass. The ridge to the westward of the true summit of Nanga Parbat, stretching as far as the Mazeno La, does not culminate in any very pronounced peaks. The lowest point, probably 19,000 to 20,000 feet, lies a little over a mile directly west of the top of the mountain. We have called this dip in the ridge the Nanga Parbat pass, and two peaks marked 21,442 feet and 20,893 feet the Mazeno peaks. To the eastward of Nanga Parbat the Rakiot peak, a superb snow-capped mountain, rises to the height of 23,170 feet, and here the main ridge turns considerably more to the north-east, ending in the twin Chongra peaks, 22,360 feet, which overlook Astor and the Chongra valley. Beyond these a sudden and abrupt fall in height of about 3000 feet occurs, and the ridge running more and more in a northerly direction, and never rising above 18,000 feet in height, constitutes the western boundary of the Astor valley.

The height of our camp in the Rupal nullah was calculated from observations made with a mercurial barometer. The difference in level between the two cisterns was 531 millimetres, from which observation it was 9900 feet above sea-level.[F]

We finally decided that it would be best to obtain a good view of the south face of Nanga Parbat before we made up our minds whether we should remain in the Rupal nullah. Two of us, Mummery and I, agreed to start the next day with the intention of combining business with pleasure; in fact, we had vague ideas about climbing the Chiche peak, 20,490 feet.

On July 18 we set out early. Our route lay up the north side of the Rupal nullah through the fields of the small hamlet of Rupal. The morning light, the ripening crops waving in the sunshine, and the fields backed by pine woods, glaciers, and snow-peaks, were very beautiful. Unfortunately, as is usual in this part of the Rupal nullah, we were unable to obtain any view of the great peak of Nanga Parbat, our path taking us directly underneath it. Above the Rupal village the Nanga Parbat glacier sweeps across the valley from underneath the summit of the peak. This glacier, which owes its formation to avalanches perpetually falling down the southern face of the mountain, lies across the Rupal nullah almost at right angles, and forms a huge embankment varying from 500 to 800 feet high. The route up the nullah here turns off to the right, following a hollow which has been formed between the mountain-side and the true left bank of the glacier, and which we found well wooded, with a clear stream running down the centre. In all the larger nullahs the same conditions were conspicuous: usually for several miles up the valley above the end of the glacier a subsidiary valley would exist, between the side moraine of the glacier and the hill-side. These side moraines are often clothed with huge pine-trees, whilst below, birches and willows, dwarf rhododendrons and wild roses, cover the pasturages.

A climb of about 200 feet is necessary to take one on to the Nanga Parbat glacier, which at this point is flush with the top of the moraine, and, like so many others in this district, is littered with stones of all sizes. Though much more uneven, it is similar to the lower end of glaciers such as the Zmutt or the Miage. On the west side of the glacier a steep descent must be made down on to the bottom of the Rupal nullah. The floor of the valley here is carpeted with masses of brushwood. As one proceeds up the nullah two more glaciers, similar to the Nanga Parbat glacier, descend at a steep angle from the big peak, but do not stretch quite across the valley, and can be passed by walking round between their ends and the Rupal torrent. Just below the Rupal glacier itself, a well-wooded stretch of pasture-land opens out, studded with pines and other trees. Here it was that we saw, or thought we saw, our first red bear; he was some way off, but the keen-eyed shikari saw the bushes moving, and assured us that the movement was due to a 'Balu,' and as there were traces of these animals in every direction, probably the shikari was right.

Having made up our minds to camp just at the end of the Chiche glacier, we tried to effect a crossing over the Rupal torrent which looked quite shallow in several places, but these mountain streams are very deceptive. From a distance of a hundred yards nothing seems more easy than to wade across, but to any one in the swirling torrent the aspect of affairs is very different; ice-cold water with insecure and moving stones below is by no means conducive to a rapid crossing, and our shikari, who first essayed it, made but little advance. Ultimately he edged his way safely back to land, but still on the same side of the stream. Mummery, who was not to be beaten, next made a determined effort, but in his turn had to retreat after having been very nearly swept off his feet. There was, however, an alternative route. By ascending the valley to the end of the Rupal glacier a path would doubtless easily be found on the ice which would take us across to our camping-ground for the night. We were not disappointed, and soon found a spot where our tents could be pitched. The day had been more or less misty, but towards sunset the clouds began partially to roll off the peaks. Then in the gleaming gold of a Himalayan sunset we beheld the southern face of Nanga Parbat. Eagerly we scanned every ridge and glacier, as naturally we preferred to attack the peak if possible from the well-provisioned and hospitable Rupal nullah. Should we be unable to find a feasible route on this side, then it would be necessary to move our base of operations over the range into the wild Chilas country, about which we knew very little, but where we were certain supplies would be difficult to obtain. Knight, who was at Astor in 1891, writes of the Chilas country as follows:—

'That white horizon so near me was the limit of the British Empire, the slopes beyond descending into the unexplored valleys of the Indus where dwell the Shinaka tribesmen. Had I crossed the ridge with my followers, the first human beings we met would in all probability have cut our heads off.'

Our survey of the south of Nanga Parbat was not very encouraging; directly above the Rupal nullah the mountain rose almost sheer for 14,000 to 15,000 feet. Precipice towered above precipice. Hanging glaciers seemed to be perched in all the most inconvenient places, whilst some idea of the average angle of this face may be obtained from the map. The height of the glacier directly under the summit is about 11,000 to 12,000 feet—that is to say, in about two miles or less, measured on the map, there is a difference in height of 15,000 feet. In the Alps one can only compare it in acclivity with the Mer de Glace face of the Charmoz and Grépon. On the south face of the Matterhorn or of Mont Blanc a mile measured on the map would probably only make a difference in height of some 5000 and 7000 feet respectively. To come to more familiar instances, the top of the Matterhorn rises 8000 to 9000 feet above Zermatt, but it is distant some six or seven miles; whilst the summit of Mont Blanc, which is 12,000 feet higher than Chamounix, is about eight miles off.

One route however seemed to offer some hopes of success. By climbing a very steep rock buttress and then traversing an ice ridge, which looked like a very exaggerated copy of the one on the Brenva route up Mont Blanc, a higher snow-field could be gained, from which the Nanga Parbat pass seemed easy of access. But as the pass was not much over 20,000 feet, at least another 6000 feet would have to be ascended, and the rocky ridge which connected it with the summit would tax the climbers' powers to the utmost. An obvious question also arose as to the possibility of pushing camps with provisions up to 20,000 feet by this route, for we were agreed that our highest camp must at least be somewhere about that altitude.

But the evening mists again drifted over the magnificent range opposite and soon hid the upper part of the mountain. They did not finally disappear till long after sunset. In the meantime we contented ourselves with planning our expedition for the morrow by the light of the camp fire. The height of the camp by mercurial barometer was 12,150 feet.

Before daylight next day we started up the middle of the Chiche glacier, accompanied by two of our Kashmiri servants. Stones without number covered the ice, and our lanterns only sufficed to show how unpleasant our path on the glacier was likely to prove. Soon the cold grey of the morning revealed the Chiche peak straight in front of us, a dim and colourless shadow. Quickly the dawn rose; we saw the bare precipitous ice slopes on its northern face, scored everywhere by avalanche grooves, and the loneliness of the scene impressed itself upon us. We were entering on a new land, a country without visible trace of man; probably we were the first who had ever ventured into its recesses. No breeze stirred, and the eastern sun slanting across the peaks threw jagged shadows over the snows; soon rising higher in the heavens, it topped the ridges and bathed us in its warm glow.

At once the glacier wakened into life, and as the stones on the surface were loosened from the frozen grip of night, those which were insecurely perched would ever and again fall down the slippery ice; then would we hear a grating noise followed by a deep thud or booming splash. These luckless stones had 'left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,' and deep in the cavernous hollows of each crevasse or below the still green water of the glacier pools they rested, till such time as the crushing heel of the relentless ice should grind them slowly to powder.

Grand and solemn in the perfect summer's morning was my introduction to the snow world of the mighty Himalaya. The great hills were around me once more. The peaks, ridges, ice-clad gullies, and stupendous precipices encircling me, sent the blood tingling through my veins; I was free to climb where I listed, and the whole of a long July day was before me. To those whose paths lie in more civilised and inhabited regions, this enthusiasm about wild and desolate mountains may seem unwarranted, may, perhaps, even savour of an elevation of fancy, a vain belief of private revelation founded neither on reason nor common sense. They probably will agree with Dr. Johnson, who writes of the Western Highlands of Scotland: 'It will readily occur that this uniformity of barrenness can afford little amusement to the traveller; that it is easy to sit at home and conceive rocks, heaths, and waterfalls, and that these journeys are useless labours which neither impregnate the imagination nor inform the understanding.' The 'saner' portion of humanity, on the whole, are of one mind with the great Doctor, at least if one can judge from their utterances, and the votary of the mountains is often looked upon with pity as one who, being carried away by a kind of frenzy, is hardly responsible for his actions.

A sport like mountaineering needs no apology. Moreover, it has been so often and so ably defended by writers with ample knowledge of their subject, that nothing remains for me to say to this 'saner portion,' unless perhaps I might be allowed to quote the following oracular remark: '"But it isn't so, no-how," said Tweedledum. "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "If it was so it might be; and if it were so it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."'

There are, however, those who accuse the mountaineer of worse things than a foolish and misguided enthusiasm about the waste places of the earth. I have often been told that this ardent desire for wild and rugged scenery is an unhealthy mental appetite, the result of the restless and jaded palate of the age, which must be indulged by new sensations, no matter at what cost. Why cannot the mountaineer rest content with the fertile valleys, the grass-clad ranges, and the noble forests with the streams flashing in the sunlight? Why cannot he be satisfied with these simpler and more homely pleasures? To what end is this eagerness for scenes where desolation and naked Nature reign supreme, where avalanches thunder down the mountain-sides, where man has never lived, nay, never could live?

To a few the knowledge of the hills is given. They can wander free in the great snow world relying on their mountain craft; and should their imagination not be impregnated nor their understanding informed, then are their journeys indeed useless. For Nature spreads with lavish hand before them some of the grandest sights upon which human eye can gaze. Delicate, white, ethereal peaks like crystallised clouds send point after point into the deep azure blue sky. Driven snow, marvellously moulded in curving lines by the wind, wreathes the long ridges; and in the deep crevasses the light plays flashing backwards and forwards from the shining beryl blue sides: sights such as these delight the soul of the mountaineer and tempt him always onward.

The ever-varying clouds, forming, dissolving, and again collecting on the mountains, show, here a delicate spire of rock, undiscernible until the white curling vapour shuts out the black background, there a lesser snow-peak tipped by the sunlight floating slowly across it and rimmed by the white border of the morning mists.

But it is needless for the lover of the mountains to describe these sights; the mere stringing together of word-pictures carries little conviction. The sailor who spends his life on the ocean might just as well attempt to awaken enthusiasm for a seafaring life in the minds of inland country-folk, by describing the magnificence of a storm at sea, when the racing waves drive by the ship and the wind shrieks in the rigging, or by telling them of voyages through summer seas when the fresh breezes and the long rolling billows speed the ship on its homeward way through the ever-changing waters.

The subject, however, must not be taken too seriously. No doubt the average individual has most excellent reasons for abstaining from climbing hills, whilst the mountaineer is, as a rule, more competent to ascend peaks than to explain their attractions; and to quote from a fragment of a lost MS.,[G] probably by Aristotle: 'Now, concerning the love of mountain climbing and the excess and deficiency thereof, as well as the mean which is also a virtue, let this suffice.'

But I have wandered far from the Chiche glacier. Whether it was owing to our tremendous burst of enthusiasm which reacted on our ambition, or to a lack of muscle necessary for a hard day's work, nevertheless it must be recorded that presently our anxiety to climb the Chiche peak gradually dwindled, and after several tentative suggestions we both eagerly agreed that from a smaller summit just as good a view of Nanga Parbat could be obtained as from one 20,490 feet high.

We therefore turned our attention to a spur on our right which ran in a northerly direction from the Chiche peak. As the day wore on even this proved too much for us, and after tediously floundering through soft snow, and cutting steps up a small couloir of ice, a strange and fearsome process to our Kashmiris, we sat down to lunch, at a height of 16,000 feet, and basely gave up any ideas of higher altitudes. We were hopelessly out of condition. Below us on our left lay a most enticing rock ridge, where plenty of fun and excitement could be had, and from its precipitous nature in several places, it would evidently take us the rest of the afternoon to get back to our camp.

Clouds persistently interfered with the view of Nanga Parbat, but now and again its summit would shine through the drifting vapours, showing precipice above precipice. The eastern face of the Chiche peak, which we saw edgeways, was superb. Nowhere in the Alps is there anything with which one can compare the savage black corrie which nestled right in the heart of the mountain, showing dark, precipitous walls of rock, with here and there a shelf where isolated patches of snow rested. This corrie forms one of the heads of the Chiche nullah, which would be worth visiting for this solitary and savage view alone. As we descended our rock-ridge we had to put on the rope, and soon experienced all the pleasures of the initiated. Our bold and fearless Kashmir servants got more and more alarmed; and the peculiar positions they occasionally thought it necessary to assume made us feel how sweet is the joy of being able to accomplish something that an inexperienced companion regards as impossible. In many places it was only by very great persuasion that they were induced to move. Many were the things they told in Hindustani, which we understood but imperfectly, though we gathered in a general way that no self-respecting Kashmiri would ever attempt to climb down such places, and that even the ibex and markhor would find it an impossibility, a true enough assertion, seeing that many of the small rock faces to be negotiated were practically perpendicular for fifteen or twenty feet.

We reached our tents late in the afternoon to find that Hastings had come up from the lower camp. A council of war was then held. Evidently we were not in condition to storm lofty peaks; and in order to get ourselves into proper training, a walk round to the other side of Nanga Parbat was considered necessary. Hastings as arranged had brought up plenty of provisions, thus enabling the party to brave the snows and uninhabited wilds in front of them. Our immediate movements decided upon, we sat round the camp fire, dined, smoked, talked, and finally, when the stars were shining brightly above the precipice-encircled summit of Nanga Parbat opposite, retired into our sleeping-bags for the night.

CHAPTER IV

FIRST JOURNEY TO DIAMIRAI NULLAH AND THE DIAMIRAI PASS

'Lo! where the pass expands Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks, And seems, with its accumulated crags, To overhang the world.' Shelley.

Early the next morning, before the sun had risen, we started for the Mazeno La, which should lead us into the wild and unknown Chilas country. We soon experienced the kind of walking that afterwards we found to be more often than not the rule. Loose stones of every size and description lay piled between the edge of the glacier and the side of the valley, and it was useless to attempt to walk on the glacier itself, for not only was it buried deep with debris, but was crevassed as well. For some distance we followed the northern or left bank, passing by the snout of a small ice-fall that came down from the main range of Nanga Parbat, and then turned to the right up and over an intervening spur, which finally brought us to the level of the glacier that lay immediately under the Mazeno La. Across this our path lay in the burning sun of the morning. Before us, about 1500 feet higher up, was the pass; first the glacier was crossed, and then partly by rocks and partly over soft snow the way led upwards. Within a few hundred feet of the summit (18,000 feet) I experienced a violent attack of mountain sickness, and was hardly able to crawl to the top. This was the only time any of the party suffered at all, and later a slight headache or lassitude was the only symptom that I ever felt, even when at heights up to 20,000 feet.

The western face of the pass is much more precipitous than the one we had ascended, but by making use of an easy rock arête we soon got down (2000 feet) to the more level glacier below. The Mazeno La on the western side somewhat resembles the Zinal side of the Triftjoch, but is not quite so difficult.

The more active of our coolies, together with servants, were sent on with the instructions to camp on the right-hand side of the glacier as soon as they should come to any bushes out of which a fire could be made, but we were not destined that evening to camp in any comfort. Caught on the glacier by the darkness we were forced to sleep for the night on a small plot of grass on the edge of the side moraine, 13,400 feet, and not till the next morning did we rejoin our coolies about a mile and a half lower down the valley. After we had obtained sufficient to eat we started down beside the glacier, which I have named the Lubar glacier on account of the small shepherds' encampment of that name just below the end of it. On our arrival at Lubar we made our first acquaintance with the Chilas folk, some of whom looked very wild and unkempt, but throughout our expedition we found them to be friendly enough, and never experienced any difficulty with them. Some sour and particularly dirty goats' milk out of huge gourds was their offering to us, and a small sheep, price four rupees, was purchased.

Our destination, however, was the Diamirai nullah on the north-west of Nanga Parbat, so we did not stay long, and winding away up the hill-side, leaving the Lubar stream far below us on the left, we first traversed a beautiful wood of birch-trees, and later got out on to the bare hill-side.

Only two small ridges separate the Diamirai from the Lubar nullah, but they are only small in comparison with their bigger neighbours; consequently we did not reach the Diamirai nullah that day, but camped on the hill-side by a small stream at 12,500 feet. A magnificent view to the west showed all the country stretched out before us, a country untravelled by any European, whilst skirting the horizon were some splendid snow-peaks that lay near the head of the Swat valley beyond Tangir and Darel. Next day, July 22, before coming to the Diamirai nullah a herd of markhor was seen on the slope not far in front of us, and by midday we camped on the south side of the huge Diamirai glacier that fills up the centre of the nullah, having taken about five hours from our last camp, and having come over some very rough ground. As soon as the baggage was unpacked it was discovered that a pair of steig-eisen had been left at the camp of the night before. One of the goat-herds from Lubar had come with us, and he, being promised a rupee should he bring them back, started at about two o'clock, running up the hill-side like a goat, and by half-past six o'clock was back again with them. Of course, these men having been trained in the hills are very agile, and able to cover long distances, but considering the height there was to climb, and the nature of the ground traversed, his was a fine performance.

The camp (12,450 feet) was placed amongst some stunted pine-trees and huge boulders that had rolled down the moraine, the glacier itself being high (200 feet) above the floor of the valley at the side.

The view to the westward was much the same as we had seen the night before, only with this difference: it was enclosed now between the two sides of the Diamirai nullah, whilst the glacier fell away down the valley in the foreground, towards the Indus, 10,000 feet below. Beyond, range after range receded to the horizon, the furthest peaks probably being more than one hundred miles distant. There the mountain thieves of Darel, Tangir, and of the country west of Chilas live unmolested.

But eastward, at the head of the valley, towered Nanga Parbat, 14,000 feet above us, one mass of ice and snow, with rock ribs protruding here and there, and vast overhanging glaciers ready at any moment to pour down thousands of tons of ice on to the glaciers below. Lit up a brilliant orange by the setting sun, and with the shadows on the lower snows of a pale green, it certainly looked most beautiful, but up its precipitous face a way had to be found, and at first sight it did not look very promising.

From our camp we could see the whole face, and Mummery was not long before he pointed out a route by which we hoped later to gain the upper snow-fields just underneath the summit, and thence the topmost pinnacle which glistened in the sunlight.

The provisions brought over from the Rupal nullah were only meant to last for a few days, so, after the exploration of the western side of Nanga Parbat, it became necessary to arrange for the return. The servants and coolies were sent back by the route we had come, whilst we made up our minds to cross the ridge on the south side of the valley sufficiently high up to bring us down either on to the Mazeno La, or, if we were fortunate, into the head of the Rupal nullah.

I went for a walk about four miles up the glacier, but was unable to find a break in the great wall at the head of the Diamirai nullah. On my return I nearly ran into the arms of a huge red bear; and I must confess that we both were very much frightened.

The Diamirai Pass from the Red Pass.

That night, a little before midnight, we started with lanterns, picking our way first through the small rhododendron bushes by the side of the glacier for about a mile, then turning to the right obliquely up the hill-side with the intention of reaching a rock rib which led up to a gap in the great wall that bounded the Diamirai nullah on the south side. For a long time we stumbled up what seemed an interminable shoot of loose stones, but by the time the early dawn gave sufficient light to enable us to see where we were, a rock arête came into view on our left.[H] Towards this we made our way, finding the climbing was by no means difficult. Occasionally the arête would become too perpendicular for us to follow it, and then we had to cut steps along the top of ice- or snow-slopes that were underneath the rocks on the top of the ridge and chance finding our way back up some gully or subsidiary rib of rocks that might branch out from the main arête.

We did not seem to waste much time, but long after the sun had risen and the silent ranges of blue mountains had flushed first with the rosy tints of the rising sun and afterwards glistened with the full blaze of the morning, the pass was still far away above us. These Himalaya are constructed on a totally different scale from either the Alps or any of the ordinary snow mountains. Still, point after point had to be surmounted. Once in the mist that settled down on us about eleven o'clock, we at last thought the summit was reached, and began to descend an arête that led towards the south. Twenty minutes later, when it cleared, great was our vexation to find the pass still a long distance above us on our right, and that we had unconsciously been descending towards the Diamirai nullah. Upwards again we had to climb, finally finding that the ridge led to the top of a peak on the west of the pass and about a thousand feet higher. In order to save the extra fatigue of climbing to the summit and again descending to the pass, Mummery made a bold effort, striking across the face of the mountain. In some places rocks stuck out from the steep face, in others ice slopes had to be crossed, and towards the middle a great circle of soft snow, with steep ice underneath, gave us an anxious time; for should the surface snow have avalanched away, it would not have stopped for certainly several thousand feet. By tying two ropes (eighty and sixty feet long) together, we spread ourselves out as far apart as possible, and very carefully made our way across. It was two in the afternoon before the summit of the pass was reached; its height was 18,050 feet. We have named it the Diamirai pass. Mummery assured us that he had never been over a more sporting pass, and we were delighted with the varied climbing that we had experienced. But our enthusiasm was soon checked; below, on the further side, we could see neither the wished-for Rupal nullah nor the Mazeno La. Easy rocks and snow led down to a small glacier, which, flowing southwards, led into another and larger glacier whose trend was to the west. Evidently the larger glacier was the Lubar. The position we were in gradually began to dawn on us. In fourteen hours we had made, as the crow flies, three miles; of course we had climbed about six thousand feet, but in front of us lay a descent of three thousand feet, and on to the wrong side of the range, therefore at least five miles away round the corner on the left was the Mazeno La, 18,000 feet. We also knew that our camp, and probably our first food, was nearly twenty miles on the other side of the Mazeno, and to make matters worse we had only a few scraps left, a slice of meat, some sticks of chocolate, and about half a dozen biscuits. There was no time to admire the view, also not much view to admire, for the customary midday mists completely hid Nanga Parbat and all the higher peaks. As an heroic effort Mummery suggested that it might save time to climb up from the pass on the south side, over a peak nearly 21,000 feet, in order to drop down on to the Mazeno La; but we soon decided that it was imprudent so late in the day to attempt it, especially as it would most certainly involve spending the night out at some very high altitude. We therefore rapidly descended the easy slopes on the south side of this pass, to which, as I have said, we gave the name of Diamirai. After running down the foot glacier, the Lubar glacier was reached at about half-past five. Here we stopped and rested for about an hour and a half, vainly attempting to get away from a bitterly cold wind that was blowing up from the west. But there was no shelter, so the lesser of two evils was chosen, namely to go on. Slowly we crawled to the foot of the Mazeno La, and about twenty hours after we had started on our expedition, without food, and with only the light of our lanterns, we toiled up the slopes that would bring us at last to the top of our second pass, 18,000 feet above sea-level. I shall never forget how tobacco helped me through that night, as I smoked whilst waiting on the summit, in the freezing air and the bright starlight, for Mummery and Hastings; it almost made me feel that I was enjoying myself; and it stayed the pangs of hunger and soothed away the utter weariness that beset both mind and body.

During our wild nocturnal wanderings, first down the Mazeno, and then down the Rupal glacier, where in the dim candle-light and in a semi-conscious condition we slipped, tumbled, and fell, but always with one dominant idea—namely, we must go on!—that pipe continued to help me. What cared I though Hastings growled?—he does not smoke!—or whether poor Mummery groaned aloud as he stepped into icy pools of water. So we stumbled frantically forwards, over the vast wilderness of stones and ice; and I remember, as we groped our way onwards, I must have half fallen asleep, for I could not get out of my mind that there was a hut or a small hotel on the top of the Mazeno La, and that for our sins we had been doomed to wander for ever in this dismal and waste land of cold and darkness, whilst rest and food were foolishly left behind.

But daylight came at last, and, after the sun was well up in the sky, we finally made our way off that dreadful glacier. We also had vague hopes that perhaps after all we might be able to get something to eat before we reached our camp, miles away near Tashing. For one of our Kashmiri servants had been told to wait at the foot of the glacier—a week if necessary—till we turned up. We were quite uncertain whether he would follow our instructions, but at seven o'clock Hastings and I found him camped under a huge rock. At once some provisions and a kettleful of hot tea were sent back to Mummery, who was resting some miles up the valley. At half-past ten I left Hastings and Mummery asleep amongst the flowers in the shade under the rock, and set off alone for the lower camp, if possible to hurry up some ponies to fetch them down the valley. Early in the afternoon I met them with two of the Rupal coolies: they had crossed the Nanga Parbat glacier, no easy thing to do, but, the steep face of dried mud and boulders about thirty feet high leading off the glacier, they could not get up. Engineering operations at once became necessary; with my ice-axe I cut large footsteps diagonally upwards across this steep face. But the first pony was afraid. After some talking, one of the men led up a wise-looking, grey pony to the bottom, and, talking to it, showed it the staircase. It then climbed up, feeling each step carefully with its forelegs before venturing on to it. These unshod mountain-horses are certainly extremely clever on such kind of ground. Several years later, when travelling in the Canadian Rocky Mountains with a whole pack of Canadian ponies, a place not one-quarter as difficult entirely stopped the whole outfit, although for making their way through fallen timber and across dangerous streams these Canadian ponies are unequalled.

Between five and six that evening I arrived at our Tashing camp and found Bruce there. He had obtained a month's leave, bringing with him two Gurkhas—Ragobir and Goman Singh. Over our dinner we forgot the weary tramping of the last forty hours, celebrating the occasion by drinking all the bottles of Bass's pale ale—a priceless treasure in these parts—that we had brought from Kashmir. Then afterwards, when we turned into our sleeping-bags before the roaring camp-fire, and the twilight slowly passed into the azure night, and overhead the glistening stars were blazing in the clear sky, a worthy ceiling to this mountain land, it was agreed unanimously that it was worth coming many thousand miles to enjoy climbing in the Himalaya, and that those who lived at home ingloriously at their ease knew not the joys that were to be found amidst the ice and snows of the greatest of mountain ranges. Never would they enjoy the keen air that sweeps across the snow-clad heights, never would they wander homeless and supperless over the vile wastes which surround the Mazeno La for the best part of two nights and two days; and, last but not least, never would such joys as the marvellous contentment born of a good dinner, after incipient starvation, nor the delicious rest that comes as the reward after excessive fatigue—never would joys such as these be theirs.

CHAPTER V

SECOND JOURNEY TO DIAMIRAI NULLAH AND ASCENT TO 21,000 FEET

'And this, the naked countenance of earth, On which I gaze, even these primæval mountains, Power dwells apart in their tranquillity, Remote, serene, and inaccessible.' Shelley.

Next day Bruce and I with Ragobir and Goman Singh went for an excursion up the Tashing glacier, in order that the two Gurkhas might have some experience in ice-work and step-cutting. It was great fun, and although I was perfectly unable to understand any of their conversation, Ragobir and Goman Singh were laughing, chattering, and playing the whole time like two children.

On July 27 the same party, with the addition of Mummery, started for a ridge which runs south-east towards Tashing from the peak marked 22,360 feet, which we named Chongra peak, as it is at the head of the valley of that name above Astor. We crossed the Tashing glacier, and camped at 15,000 feet by some rocks. Next day was spent in a ridge-wander. Our intention was to climb a rock peak overlooking the Chongra nullah; but laziness was in the air, the day was hot, and the ridge endless. Finally a halt was called somewhat short of the peak that we had intended to climb, and for a long time we basked in the sun, smoked, ate our lunch, and enjoyed the superb view of the precipices of Nanga Parbat on the west and of the Karakoram range far away to the northward. Out of the masses of snow-clad giants in the remote distance to the north-east, one rose obviously higher than all its neighbours; in shape it resembled the view of K² as seen from Turmik.[I] Since then, however, Bruce has told me that the mountain that was seen from Turmik was probably the Mustagh tower. These two peaks would be about one hundred miles away, and in that clear atmosphere should be perfectly visible from our position (about 17,000 feet), for we were high enough to see over the range on the east of the Astor valley. We also saw across the Indus and up the Shigar valleys, and further still the eye was directed straight up the Baltoro with no high peaks or ranges to intercept its view. Very much nearer and more to the north just on the other side of the Astor nullah a really magnificent double-headed peak, the Dichil,[J] sends up a series of perfectly impossible precipices. Its height on the map is 19,490 feet, but I am positive this measurement must be wrong. Much later, whilst returning from the Rakiot nullah to Dashkin, I was at a point 16,000 feet on the ridge just opposite across the Astor valley, and seen from there it apparently towered at least 5000 feet above me. In the Dichil nullah at its foot the valley cannot be more than 10,000 feet, and the view of it from this nullah must far surpass that of Ushba in grandeur.

During the day a curious haze hung over some of the precipices at the head of the Tashing glacier just opposite to us, due to perpetual avalanches of stones which were partly falling, partly sliding, down the steep slopes.

We returned to camp by a different route. A steep rock ridge led straight down from the peak we were on to the Tashing glacier below. On this ridge we had some delightful climbing, ultimately reaching the upper pasturages lying on the left bank of the glacier. It was a long tramp from there home, but just as it became dark we marched into our camp beneath the grove of willows.

The 29th was spent preparing for our start for the Diamirai nullah, for Mummery had quite given up all idea of attempting to climb the thousands of feet of almost perpendicular wall that ran the whole way along the south face of Nanga Parbat. The next day we started with a perfect caravan of coolies. Our intention was to send Goman Singh and our servants, together with all the coolies and baggage, over the Mazeno La by the route we had first taken, whilst we ourselves with Ragobir should try to cross directly from the head of the Rupal nullah to the head of the Diamirai nullah.

This time we hoped to have better luck than on our return over the Diamirai pass. But it was with some misgiving that I started, for I alone in my walk a week before up the Diamirai glacier had seen the head of that nullah, and although I did not doubt that we might reach the head of some pass from the southern side, I could not remember any place where it would be possible for us to descend on the northern side, and under any conditions our pass would be at least 20,000 feet, probably more, for the route lay directly over the spur which leads westward from the summit of Nanga Parbat to the Mazeno La. That night we camped about four to five miles short of the Mazeno La at a height of 13,000 feet. In the dark we started next morning up excessively steep and broken moraine by the side of an ice-fall, thence we turned on to the steep glacier, and after some difficulty got on to the upper glacier, which came down from the north-east. After following this for some distance we turned to our left up a wide couloir, and partly on rocks and partly on snow slowly climbed upwards. By three in the afternoon Bruce, who was not in such good condition as we were, and was suffering from suppressed mumps (although neither he nor we knew it at the time), began to feel tired, but under the stimulation produced by some citrate of caffeine lozenges he went on again bravely. At last we came out on to the ridge at the head of the couloir, and climbed some few hundred feet up the arête, which seemed to lead to the very summit of the peak marked 21,442 feet on the map. But the time was five o'clock in the afternoon. The height by mercurial barometer was 20,150 feet. We had climbed over 7000 feet; but beyond feeling very tired, which was natural, we were hardly affected by the rarefied air. Here we stopped for some short time and had our evening meal. Bruce and I came to the conclusion that, as we must certainly spend the night out somewhere, a less exalted position was preferable. We selected a new route, which would take us down to the foot of the Mazeno La, Ragobir coming with us. Mummery and Hastings would not hear of beating a retreat thus early, so they arranged to go on, and should they find the ridge become too difficult further up, they would return and follow us down, but they hoped for a full moon and the possibility of climbing on during the night.

The Mazeno Peaks from the Red Pass.

Bruce and I did not make much progress, for our ridge soon became both narrower and more precipitous; but finally, as the sun was setting, we found a crack running through the arête into which a flat stone had got jammed just large enough for three people to sit on. Here we made up our minds to stop for the night. Roughly we were 19,000 feet, or 1000 feet higher than the Mazeno La, and about two to three miles to the eastward of it. A stone thrown out on either side of our small perch would have fallen many hundreds of feet before hitting anything, so we did not take off the rope, but huddled together as best we could to keep warm.

I could write a very long description of the wonderful orange sunset we saw beyond the Mazeno, how the light faded out of the sky, and the stars came out one by one as the sunset disappeared; how we tried in vain to get into positions such that the freezing wind would not penetrate our clothes, how Bruce and Ragobir groaned, and how we suffered—but I will refrain. Let any one who may be curious on the subject of a night out on a rock ridge at 19,000 feet try it; but he must place himself in such a position that, twist and turn as he may, he still encounters the cold, jagged rocks with every part of his body, and though he shelter himself ever so wisely, he must feel the wind steadily blowing beneath his shirt.

Late in the night we heard noises on the ridge above us. It was Mummery and Hastings returning. But, although they were within speaking distance of Bruce and myself, and I had lit a lantern to show them where we were, they could not reach us, and finally had to select the least uncomfortable place they could. With leaden feet the night paced tardily on, and brilliant stars and moon that had at first shone from the zenith gradually sank towards the west, but how slowly!—

'Yon lily-woven cradle of the hours Hath floated half her shining voyage, nor yet Is by the current of the morn opposed.'

Would the morning never come, and with it the warm sunshine? Daylight crept up the sky, however, at last, and as soon as they could, Mummery and Hastings joined us. After we left them, they had climbed some considerable distance further, but as the mists did not lift at sundown and the other side of the range was unknown, they perforce had to return, having nearly reached the summit of the mountain and a height of 21,000 feet. It was a long time before we got down on to the Mazeno glacier, but somewhere about ten o'clock we arrived on the flat glacier. Here the party, overcome by the warmth of the sunshine and a great drowsiness, went to sleep on some of the flat slabs of stone that lay scattered on the ice. Personally, nothing would have given me more pleasure than to have followed the example of the rest, but visions of another night out on the Lubar glacier troubled me. Moreover, we had nothing whatever to eat, the night before having seen the last of our provisions. Ragobir and I therefore with weary feet started to cross the Mazeno La.

Very slowly we toiled and toiled upwards through the already softened snow; but long before we reached the summit, more than once Ragobir had lain down on the ground exhausted. I found out later that he had eaten nothing whatever the day before. Ultimately we got to the top and rested awhile. Our mission was to get to Lubar, and from there send back up the glacier milk and meat to the remainder of the expedition. It was already midday, and here was I with a Gurkha who could hardly crawl, and the rest of the party perhaps in a worse condition far behind. So after a short rest, I started down from the pass on the west side, soon leaving Ragobir behind. Then I waited for him. Repeating these tactics he was enticed onwards again, until crossing an ice-couloir rendered dangerous through falling stones, I walked out on to the level glacier at the bottom to await him. Very slowly he crawled down, and when in the centre of the couloir, although I screamed to him to hurry, he was nearly hit by a great stone weighing half a hundredweight that had come from two or three thousand feet above. Although it only missed him by a few feet, he never changed his pace; and when at last he reached me, seated on a stone, he dropped full length on the ice, absolutely refusing to move, and groaning. He had eaten nothing for the last forty hours.

My position was becoming serious. I could not leave the Gurkha, Lubar was miles away down the glacier, and some of the rest of the party might be in the same condition as Ragobir. I could think of nothing except to smoke my pipe and wait for something to happen. Half an hour passed, then an hour; and then, far up on the summit of the Mazeno La a black dot appeared, and shortly afterwards two more. So I waited, and at last the whole party was reunited. Bruce managed to revive Ragobir, who had had over two hours' rest, and we all set off as fast as we could for the shepherds' huts at Lubar. As the sun was setting we arrived there, very weary, but buoyed up with the expectation of something to eat. I shall never forget the sight that greeted my eyes when Mummery and I, the last of the party, walked into the small enclosure of stones where the goats and sheep were collected.

Bruce was seated on the small wall in his shirt-sleeves, superintending the slaughter of one of the sheep. And, horrible to relate, in less than half an hour after we entered Lubar we were all ravenously devouring pieces of sheep's liver only half cooked on the ends of sticks.

The dirty, sour goats' milk, too, was delicious, and as far as I can recollect, each of us drank considerably over a gallon that evening, to wash down the fragments of toasted sheep and chappatties that we made from some flour that had providentially remained behind our caravan with a sick coolie. Very soon we got into a somewhat comatose condition, and there was some sort of arrangement made, that should any one wake in the night he should look after the fire. But next morning when I awoke the fire was out and I was covered with hoarfrost. We had all fallen asleep almost in the positions in which we sat in front of the fire.

I am afraid I must apologise for this second description of the delights of feeding after a prolonged fast. But few people have any conception of what it feels like to be really starving and worked till one longs to drop down anywhere—even on snow or ice. Hunger, exposure, and exhaustion are hard taskmasters, and the relief brought by rest, comfort, and plenty of food is a pleasure never to be forgotten. It is certainly one of the keenest enjoyments I have ever experienced.

Next morning we started for the Diamirai camp, taking with us the coolie and the precious flour. We preferred to strike out a new route, keeping higher up the mountain-side and more to the right. Before long we met some of our Kashmir servants who had come back from the Diamirai to look for us, and, as was their most excellent custom, brought with them as many edibles as they could. These of course were soon finished. We left them to return by the ordinary route to the camp, whilst we followed up the Butesharon glacier in a south-easterly direction, reaching at its head a col about 17,000 feet.

From this pass, on that perfectly clear afternoon, an unsurpassed panorama was spread out before us. The Indus valley lay 14,000 feet beneath us. Beyond stretched that almost unknown land below Chilas. A hundred miles away were the snow peaks in the Swat country, marked on the map as 18,563 feet and 19,395 feet high, standing out distinct against the sky, whilst much further still, a little more to the right, rose a vast snow peak nearly flat topped, or at least a ridge of peaks, several thousand feet higher than any others. It was probably Tirach Mir above Chitral, 25,426 feet and 24,343 feet high.

From the summit of the Butesharon pass we descended almost straight to the camp, which had been pitched in the old spot, where we had been ten days before.

During the next two days, August 3 and 4, we stopped in camp, and on the 5th Bruce left us, going back to Abbottabad via the Mazeno La, the Kamri, and Kashmir. As we heard afterwards, it was anything but a pleasant journey, for, probably owing to the exposure during that night on Nanga Parbat, his complaint had been aggravated, and the glands of his neck and face had become so swollen, that when he was met by a friend on the Kamri he was unrecognisable, and for many months afterwards was unable to wear a collar.

The day that Bruce left, Mummery and I with the Gurkhas started to explore the upper end of the Diamirai glacier. We camped at the head of the valley on the last grass on the northern side. Mummery and Ragobir started at midnight for the western face of Nanga Parbat. During the day they managed to reach the top of the second rib of rocks that lie directly under the summit, a height of about 17,000 to 18,000 feet. In the meantime I went to look at the Diama glacier between the Ganalo peak, 21,650 feet, and Nanga Parbat, taking with me Goman Singh and our Kashmir shikari. We climbed up the ridge that comes down from the Ganalo peak to about 17,000 feet, but unfortunately the day was cloudy, so I was unable satisfactorily to see the whole of the Diama valley, and ascertain what chances we should have if we were to attack Nanga Parbat from that side. However, on returning in the afternoon, I met Mummery on the glacier. He was delighted with his exploration, for there was, he said, magnificent climbing, and he had found a place on the top of the second rib of rock where a tent might be pitched.

From July 13, the day we left the Kishnganga valley, it had been gloriously fine; but next day, August 7, the weather broke with heavy rain. Of course all our energies now were concentrated on the ascent of Nanga Parbat. Mummery decided that we should push provisions and supplies up the route that he and Ragobir had prospected; and he was confident that once beyond the rock ribs and on the upper snow-fields with some provisions and a silk tent, it would be very hard luck indeed should we be driven back before we reached the summit.

During August 8 and 9, Mummery, Ragobir, Lor Khan (a Chilas shikari, who had come up from Gashut in the Bunar valley, and insisted on stopping with us), and I spent the time in carrying a waterproof bag of provisions and some odds and ends up the second rib of rock to a height of 17,150 feet. Here we left it in a safe place on the rocks. We also had considerable quantities of fuel taken up by coolies, to a camp 15,000 feet, at the bottom of the rocks under Nanga Parbat.

Mummery was not wrong when he said it was magnificent climbing. The only climbing in the Alps I can compare it to is that on the Chamounix Aiguilles. In many places it was similar to that on the west side of the Aiguille du Plan from the Pèlerin glacier.

Between the first and second ribs of rock the glacier was broken up into the wildest confusion, and it was only by passing a somewhat nasty couloir, down which occasional ice avalanches came, that the rocks of the second rib could be reached; thence to the top of the rib was difficult rock climbing over great slabs and towers of rock set at a very steep angle. I was extremely surprised that Lor Khan would go, but he did not seem in the least frightened, and with a little help from the rope climbed splendidly.

As we returned that night to our camp the rains descended, and we arrived wet through; the weather was getting worse, and no serious attempt could be made for the present on Nanga Parbat.

CHAPTER VI

ASCENT OF THE DIAMIRAI PEAK

'Nothing that is mountainous is alien to us; we are addicted to all high places from Gaurisankar to Primrose Hill, wherever man has not forked out Nature. No doubt we find a particular fascination in the greatest and boldest inequalities of the earth's surface and the strange scenery of the ice and snow world; but we are attracted by any inequality, so long as it has not a railroad station or a restaurant on the top of it.'

Douglas Freshfield.

About this time we were beginning to run short of provisions, though a month earlier we had ordered all sorts of luxuries—jams, Kashmir wine, and so forth—from Srinagar, and had heard that they had been despatched to Bandipur, to be forwarded thence by the Government Commissariat Department. All inquiries were, however, fruitless, but Bruce had promised that should he, on his way down country to Abbottabad, discover their whereabouts he would hurry them on. Eventually he found them reposing at Bandipur, so he at once packed them on ponies and sent them to our camp in the Rupal nullah, knowing how the Commissariat Department had to strain every nerve to get the requisite grain supplies for the troops over the passes to Gilgit before the bad weather set in and blocked the Burzil, and that private baggage and supplies might wait indefinitely till such time as it pleased the Department to find ponies to convey them to their destination. Personally we did not wish to leave the Diamirai nullah, but at the same time it was absolutely necessary that somehow we should replenish our vanishing stock of food. Already two of our Kashmir servants had been sent down into the Bunar district to bring up whatever they were able to collect, but we could not depend on the Chilas nullahs to yield us all we might want. This question of provisioning our camp caused perpetual worry. Unless one has trustworthy servants, every ten days or so one of the party has to start off to the nearest village for supplies. This may take a week or more, and as the period during which the big mountains are in a condition to climb is at the best but very limited, much valuable time will be wasted.

Bruce told me that whilst he was with Sir W. M. Conway, in the Karakorams, all the catering was left to Rahim Ali, his servant. If every fortnight during their stay at the head of the Baltoro glacier they had been forced, as we were, personally to forage and seek for dilatory servants, the climbing on Pioneer peak would have progressed but slowly. A piece of advice which cannot be too strongly urged upon those who go to the Himalaya is to get good servants at any cost, not to grudge the time spent, for it will be regained afterwards a hundredfold. The cook or khansammah ought to be the chief servant in the camp. He ought to be responsible for everything: it is his business to provide food, and a good cook who feeds one well, and takes the responsibility of the endless small details of management and supply off one's shoulders is worth five times the wages which are usually given.

Accordingly, after some consultation, Hastings generously agreed to sacrifice himself and trudge back to our camp in the Rupal nullah and thence to Astor, not only with the hope of bringing back with him all the luxuries we had weeks before ordered from Srinagar, but also with the intention of procuring sheep, flour, rice, and tea from Astor. At the same time he hoped to shorten to a great extent the journey to the Mazeno by making a new and direct pass over into the Lubar nullah immediately south of our camp. In the meantime Mummery and I were to stay behind in the Diamirai nullah and push provisions up the face of Nanga Parbat as fast as we could.

Just south of our camp rose a snow peak, about 19,000 feet, which we have called the Diamirai peak. On July 24, in crossing the pass from the Diamirai over to the Lubar glacier, we had left it on our right. It is not on the main ridge of Nanga Parbat, but on a side spur running to the westward. Camped as we were at its very foot, and looking on it as but a single day's climb, we determined to try to ascend it, whilst we waited for the snow to clear off the rocks on Nanga Parbat. By this time we had learned that the ascent of any peak 20,000 feet high was a laborious undertaking. At first we had talked about the 'twenty thousanders' somewhat contemptuously, and not without reason, for our hopes were fixed on Nanga Parbat, 26,629 feet; surely if a mountain of that height were possible, those whose summits were 7000 feet lower ought to be simplicity itself. In fact, we imagined that, as far as difficulty was concerned, they should stand somewhat in the same proportion to each other as an ascent of Mont Blanc to a climb up the Brévent from Chamounix during the springtime before all the snow has melted.

The Diamirai Peak from the Red Pass.

Unfortunately they were not quite so easy as we should have liked; not only did they involve an ascent from the camp of 7000 to 8000 feet, but also a considerable amount of the climbing under a pressure of about half an atmosphere. Then the interminable ice slopes, which in the Nanga Parbat district are very much more common than in the Alps, meant many hours of step-cutting, and the softened state of the snow directly after the sun had shone on it added considerably to our labour. Besides these drawbacks, which render the ascent of a mountain 20,000 feet high not altogether easy, the utter confusion and wearisome monotony of the stony and rugged hill-sides between the valley and the snow-line must not be forgotten.

On August the 11th, we all started early in the morning by lantern light, taking with us Ragobir and Lor Khan (as well as Goman Singh and two coolies who were to accompany Hastings as far as Astor). We first climbed up a small moraine coming steeply down the side of the main valley almost to our camp from the glacier on the north-west side of the Diamirai peak, and in about an hour and a half came to the glacier itself. Here Hastings parted company with us, and, crossing a pass (which he has named Goman Singh pass), to the westward of the Diamirai peak, got safely over down to the Lubar glacier, whence by way of the Mazeno pass he came to our camp in the Rupal nullah. Mummery and I, accompanied by Ragobir and Lor Khan, turning slightly to the left, made for a gully leading higher up to a snow ridge which ran upwards nearly to the summit of the peak. At the foot of the gully we were confronted by a small bergschrund. This we easily turned, and began scrambling up the rocks on our left hand.

Gradually the grey dawn melted into a Himalayan sunrise. Far away over the lower ridges we could see—

'The ever-silent spaces of the east Far folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.'

Above there was very little colour, pale greens verging into oranges and yellows, whilst below, in the shadows of the valleys, cold, dark steel blues, clear and deep, were the predominating shades. For a long while we watched the orange sunlight, catching first one part of Nanga Parbat and then another, as slowly the patches widened and spread creeping always down the mountain-side. Away to the north, on the opposite side of the Diamirai nullah, two minor rock peaks on the ridge were tipped with the rays of the morning sun. At the height we had already gained there was visible over the intervening ridge all the country above Gor on the further side of the Indus, while to the south of Gilgit stretched away mile after mile of mountain ranges. But by far the most striking sight was the enormous snow range beyond Gilgit and Yasin, the extreme western end of the Mustagh or Karakoram range. Rakipushi we could not see; it was just cut off by the western spur of the Ganalo peak, but from a point just west of the Kilik pass almost to the mountains above Chitral, snow summit after snow summit rose up into the heavens clear cut and distinct in the wonderfully translucent air.

View of the Diamirai Pass from the Red Pass.

The dotted lines show our various routes.

With this marvellous view nothing interfered, as the average height of the peaks on this mighty barrier which divides English from Russian territory cannot be much less than 23,000 feet, and that of the hills which lay between us and these peaks was not more than 16,000 feet. High above the great snow range on the horizon, a long-drawn cloud floated like a grey bar of silver, but it did not prevent the rays of the rising sun from covering with their golden light the whole of the distant and lonely snow world, as yet untrodden by the foot of man. As usual, a perfect stillness and calm in the morning air seemed to herald a fine day, but already we had learned to mistrust these signs:—

'Full many a glorious morning have I seene, Flatter the mountaine tops with soveraine eie,

Anon permit the basest cloudes to ride With ougly rack on his celestiall face.'

Few days were there during our stay in the Nanga Parbat region that were clear after 10 A.M., and this morning was no exception.

The sun had risen above Nanga Parbat, and we knew well how soon the snow would soften under its powerful rays—half an hour usually sufficing under these conditions to thaw through the frozen outer crust. New snow, too, had fallen in considerable quantities, so we did not want to waste any of the valuable early hours on the lower slopes. Fortunately about this time the morning mists began to gather as usual, and not only prevented the snow from melting, but protected us from the fearful glare which would have been our fate on a perfectly cloudless day. Very narrow and steep was the snow ridge which stretched up the mountain-side above us, but we knew, although we could not see from where we were, that it led almost to the summit. The average angle of the arête was a little over 40 degrees. At first Mummery was easily able to nick out steps with the axe, but soon the crust began to give way here and there, leaving us to struggle often knee-deep. On our right the angle was not very steep, but on the left of the ridge was a most forbidding ice slope. Every now and then we would make rapid progress, finding a thinner coating of snow upon the ice, with but one or two small crevasses to be crossed. Away on our left was an excellent rock ridge, but we could not reach it without cutting across the steep ice-slope. However, our arête, some distance further up, seemed to join the rock ridge, so we pushed on quickly, in the hope that above we should be rewarded by finding easy rocks to climb. Before we reached this point a difficult and steep piece on the arête had to be surmounted. If we could have traversed off to the right it would have been easier, but the snow was in a most unstable condition; small zigzags to the right and then back again on to the ridge were resorted to, and ultimately we succeeded in getting up this somewhat nasty place. Rapid progress was then made, but we found, much to our disappointment, that the rock ridge ended where it joined the arête, and our hopes of an easy rock climb vanished.

Finally we arrived just under the first summit of our mountain. Here the same difficulty we had experienced down below again presented itself, but in a worse form. The arête was much steeper, sloping probably at an angle of about 55 to 60 degrees. Mummery tried the same tactics as before, but soon had to confess that he dared not trust the snow any further, for it was thoroughly sodden upon the surface of the ice, and we might bring the whole face off at any moment. On the arête itself the snow, where it had drifted and been frozen, lay curiously deep, so that even at the thinnest point it did not allow of steps being cut in the ice below. Our only chance, therefore, was to try the ice slope on the left of the arête. Mummery led, cutting the steps diagonally across the slope, where a thin coating of snow lay some two or three inches deep over the hard ice underneath. As he moved slowly upwards, I came next on the rope, and, to keep my hands employed, passed the time in cutting the steps deeper into the ice.

The position was a sensational one—we were crossing the steepest ice slope of any great size I had ever been on; below us it shot straight down some 2000 feet without a break, till the angle became less in a small snow basin. The next objects that met the eye were the stone slopes far below in the valley, and unconsciously I began to picture to myself the duration and the result of an involuntary glissade on such a mountain-side.

Lor Khan, who came behind me on the rope, seemed to be enjoying himself immensely; of course he had never been in such a position before, but these Chilas tribesmen are famous fellows. What Swiss peasant, whilst making his first trial of the big snow peaks and the ice, would have dared to follow in such a place, and that, too, with only skins soaked through by the melting snow wrapped round his feet? Lor Khan never hesitated for a moment; when I turned and pointed downwards he only grinned, and looked as if he were in the habit of walking on ice slopes every day of his life. We were soon all in a line across this ice face, and whilst I was cutting one of Mummery's steps deeper to make it safer for our Chilas shikari, I noticed that the rope was hanging down in a great loop between Lor Khan and myself. At once I cried out to him not to move again till it was absolutely tight between us, and always to keep it so for the future. In the East we found that people were accustomed to obey instantly without asking questions. What the sahib said was law, at least so long as the sahib was there himself to enforce obedience. Consequently as I moved onward the rope soon became taut, and fortunately remained in that condition. Shortly after this Mummery turned upwards and slightly to his right, cutting nearly straight up the face, owing to some bad snow which barred our way. Just as I began the ascent of this staircase I heard a startled exclamation below. Instinctively I struck the pick of my axe deep into the ice, and at the same moment the whole of the weight of the unfortunate Lor Khan came on Ragobir and on me with the full force of a drop of some five to six feet. He had slipped out of one of the steps, and hung with his face to the glistening ice, whilst under him the thin coating of snow peeled off the face of the slope in great and ever-widening masses, gathering in volume as it plunged headlong down the mountain-side, finally to disappear over the cliffs thousands of feet below. For the time being I was fascinated by the descending avalanche, my whole mind being occupied with but this one thought, that if Lor Khan began to struggle and jerk at the rope I should without a doubt be pulled out of my steps. My fears proved groundless. Although Lor Khan had lost his footing he never lost either his head or his axe, and was just able to reach with his hand one of the steps out of which he had fallen. After Mummery had made himself quite firm above me I found myself, with the help of Ragobir, who was last on the rope, just able to haul up our Chilas shikari to a step which he had manfully cut for himself. It was, however, a very unpleasant experience; if the fall had been ten feet instead of six, I should never have been able to have borne the strain, and Lor Khan would have fallen considerably more than that if he had not been opportunely warned that he must keep the rope tight between himself and me.

Half an hour later we got off our ice slope and stepped almost on to the first summit. All our difficulties were over. After ploughing through some soft snow, at about half-past eleven o'clock we were seated on the true top of our peak, the height of which by the barometer turned out to be 19,000 feet.

We had climbed between 6000 and 7000 feet, and Mummery had led the whole way. The last 3000 feet had been very severe, for at first most of the steps had to be laboriously broken, and later we had to win our way by the use of the axe. But Mummery was perfectly fresh and could have gone on for hours, the diminished pressure (fifteen inches of mercury) having apparently no effect on him; neither was Ragobir any the worse for his climb; Lor Khan and I had slight headaches, but otherwise were quite fit for more. As we sat on the top enveloped in mist, Mummery and I debated afresh the old question, How should we feel if we ever ascended to 26,000 feet? Mummery reasoned that it would chiefly depend on our state of training at the time. Had I not been dreadfully ill at 18,000 feet crossing the Mazeno La, whilst here we were all right at 19,000 feet? Had we not ascended our last 3000 feet with hardly a rest and at exactly the same pace as if we had been climbing in the Alps? As it always takes two to argue, I perforce had to try my best as the opposition. At once I discovered that my headache was by no means a negligible quantity, and was therefore an excellent test for abnormal altitudes. Probably also mountain-sickness was a disease which lurked in the higher mountains and was ready at any moment to rush on and seize its prey. Luckily for us the particular bacillus was not just then in the surrounding atmosphere, consequently we had not been inoculated, yet perhaps should we on some future occasion go to 21,000 to 22,000 feet, we might be suddenly overwhelmed. Then I quoted an article I had read somewhere about paralysis and derangement of nerve-centres in the spinal column being the fate of all who insist on energetic action when the barometer stands at thirteen inches. It was no good, Mummery only laughed at me; and at this moment the mist clearing for a short space to the southward, we were soon far more interested with the view of the Thosho and Rupal peaks. The summit we were on fell away on the south directly under our feet in a series of rock precipices. We started on our homeward journey at about one o'clock without catching a single glimpse of Nanga Parbat. The descent of the steep ice slopes of our upward route was far too dangerous to attempt, so we decided on a rock ridge to the westward which we hoped would lead us down on the pass that Hastings had crossed earlier in the day.

Ragobir was sent to the front. He led us down the most precipitous places with tremendous rapidity and immense enjoyment. It was all 'good' according to him, and his cheery face down below made me feel that there could be no difficulty, till I found myself hanging down a slab of rock with but the barest of handholds, or came to a bulging mass of ice overhanging a steep gully, which insisted on protruding into the middle of my stomach, with direful result to my state of equilibrium.

At one place where the ridge was a narrow knife edge, with precipices on both sides, we had a splendid piece of climbing. A sharp descent of about a hundred feet occurred on the arête which seemed at first sight impossible. Ragobir tried first on the right hand, but, owing to the smoothness of the rock slabs and the absence of all handholds, was unable to get down further than twenty feet or so. Whilst I was dangling the Gurkha on the end of the rope, Mummery discovered what he considered to be a possible solution of the difficulty. Ragobir was to climb about twenty-five feet down a small open chimney on the perpendicular south face of the ridge; he then would be on the top of a narrow flake of rock which was laid against the mountain-side in the same manner as those on the traverse of the Aiguille de Grépon. We could easily hold him from above whilst he edged sideways along this narrow way. After a short time he called out that it was all right, and I let down Lor Khan next. When I myself got on to the traverse I was very much impressed, not that it was very difficult, thanks to the splendid handholds, but the face was so perpendicular that without them one could hardly have stood on the narrow top of the slab without falling outwards. A loose stone when thrown out about twenty feet pitched on some snow at least five hundred feet below.

I found Ragobir and Lor Khan on a small niche on the ridge which divided the arête into two and at the top of an incipient ice gully. With considerable difficulty I managed to squeeze on to the small platform of rock and direct operations. Ragobir cut his way down to the next place where he could rest; and, after carefully hitching the rope as safely as I could, Mummery was called on to follow. It was just the kind of place he enjoyed, but it needed some one with iron nerves to descend the somewhat difficult chimney and then edge along the traverse without a steadying-rope from above. After the descent of the ice gully the climbing proved much easier. Rapid progress was made in spite of an uncertainty as to where we were going, for everything was hidden by the afternoon mists. Our route kept slowly bending away to the south-west, and as Hastings's pass lay directly to the west, we hoped that another bend to the north-west would put us straight again.

We could not leave the ridge and traverse to our right, so perforce had to keep on descending, and when at last the mists did rise for a short time, we found our fears amply confirmed. The pass lay about a thousand feet above on our right, and, what was still more exasperating, the shortest route to it necessitated a still further descent of at least five hundred feet, followed by a traverse underneath the overhanging end of a glacier. An extra fifteen hundred feet of climbing up the unstable, interminable, and heart-breaking debris, which is so common on the south faces of the Himalaya, and that, too, late in the afternoon, was trying even to the best of tempers. I used quite unpublishable language, and even the imperturbable Mummery was moved to express his feelings in much more forcible language than was customary. There are occasions when language fails, and even the pen of Rudyard Kipling is unequal to depict the situation literally, though he does his best. There rises before me his description of that scene in the railway works at Jamalpur, where an apprentice is addressing, 'half in expostulation and half in despair, a very much disorganised engine which is sadly in need of repair.' Kipling gives us the gist of his language, but owns that after all the youth put it 'more crisply—very much more crisply.'

We reached the top at last, but even then we had to traverse to the westward half a mile before beginning the descent. Once started we went at racing speed, sometimes getting a long glissade down soft snow, sometimes a run down small stone debris; it was rather hard on poor Lor Khan, who was not shod for this kind of work, and was soon left far behind.

But it was getting late, and we wished to reach the camp before dark. Just as the sun was setting over the far-away hills in the wild, unknown Tangir, and shining through a thin veil of an evening shower, the tents under the Diamirai moraine were sighted; and during the after-dinner smoke opposite a roaring fire of pine logs we went over our day's adventures, and both agreed that we had enjoyed ourselves hugely: and so to bed.

CHAPTER VII

ATTEMPT TO ASCEND NANGA PARBAT

'An ancient peak, in that most lonely land, Snow-draped and desolate, where the white-fleec'd clouds Like lagging sheep are wandering all astray, Till the shrill whistling wind, their shepherd rude, Drives them before him at the early dawn To feed upon the barren mountain tops. Far from the stately pines, whose branches woo The vagrant breeze with murmuring melody, Far from the yellow cornlands, far from streams And dewy lawns soft cradled deep below, Naked it stands. The cold wind's goblin prate, Of weird lost legends born in days of old, Echoes all night amongst its pinnacles; Whilst higher more remote a storm-swept dome Mocks the pale moon: there nothing living reigns Save one old spirit of a forgotten God.' Fragment.

On Nanga Parbat from Upper Camp.

A week before this, on the same day that Bruce had left us, our cook and our head shikari, together with some coolies, had been sent to fetch up from the Bunar valley any provisions they could find. We knew that if they had travelled with ordinary speed, five days was ample for the whole journey, and they were therefore two days overdue. Moreover, in our camp provisions for only one day remained. Our position was annoying. Of course, as the weather had turned fine again we wished to carry more necessaries up to the camp at the head of the Diamirai glacier, just under Nanga Parbat; but even where we were at the base camp, it was two days' hard travelling from the nearest village and food. This position of affairs produced a long discussion, and finally we agreed that we ourselves must go down to Bunar after the dilatory servants. It was most provoking, but there was no help for it. Leaving the camp in charge of the goat-herd from the Lubar nullah, and our water-carrier or bhisti, Mummery and I started off with Lor Khan and some servants for Bunar. The further we went the worse the path became, but by skirting upwards along the hill-side, on the left of the valley, we soon left the Diamirai glacier far below us. About this point we met our head shikari, who had come on in front of the remainder of the party from Bunar—at least he said so, but we could get very little accurate information out of him. In fact, as we afterwards discovered, he had stopped at the first village he had come to, and remained there doing nothing, or at least nothing connected with getting us provisions, which work he left to the cook. After enjoying himself for three days in this manner, thinking it was time to return, and collecting what he could, namely some grapes and apples, he came back to us with them as a peace-offering. Whilst he had been away, however, unfortunately for him, our other servants had explained several curious things which we at the time did not understand. These explanations left in our minds no doubt that this wretched Kashmir shikari had not only been robbing us, but also all the coolies as well. We in our ignorance thought that if the coolies were paid with our own hands, the money at least would be safe. In the East this is by no means the case, for the moment we were out of sight, this wily old ruffian would return to the coolies, telling them that they had been overpaid, and that the Sahibs commanded them instantly to give back half of the money. Our coolies were mostly Baltis from the Astor district. These poor Baltis have been a downtrodden race for centuries, harried by their more warlike and courageous neighbours—the Chilasis and the robbers of Gilgit and Hunza. So the shikari has no difficulty in making them yield to his extortion.

Mummery for some time listened to his obvious lying, but soon lost his temper. A coolie anxious to go to his home in the Rupal nullah here served our purpose. The shikari was told to return to the Rupal nullah with him, and at the same time we gave him a letter to Hastings. In that letter, which he could not read, we explained the situation, and instructed Hastings to pay the shikari off and send him about his business.

The route we were following soon turned away to the left, leaving the Diamirai nullah on the right. It was afterwards that we found out the reason for this. It seems to be impossible to descend or ascend this portion of the Diamirai nullah direct. The valley narrows in below the bottom of the glacier, and finally becomes a deep gorge with cliffs thousands of feet high on either side. Our change in direction soon showed us that we should have to cross the tributary Lubar nullah. This meant that we had to climb down a very steep rocky face of about 3000 feet. At about four in the afternoon we arrived at the bottom, finding an impassable glacier torrent thundering over great boulders and swollen by the melted snows of the morning. Walls of rock barred our way either up or down the stream, but Lor Khan said we were at the ford. In vain we tried to place pine trunks across—they were swept away one by one. It was a fine sight to see Lor Khan, stripped to the waist, struggling in the icy water with the great pine stems, a magnificent specimen of fearlessness, muscle, and activity. Fortunately we had insisted on roping him, for once he was carried off his feet and had to be brought back to land half drowned but laughing. It soon became perfectly evident that we could not cross till early next morning, when the frost on the glaciers above would have frozen up the sources of this turbulent stream. As we were wondering where we could possibly find room to lie down for the night, high above us on the opposite bank a stone came bounding down a precipitous gully. Who had started it? Some goat or other wild animal; or was it our cook returning with provisions? Shouting was useless, for the roar of the torrent drowned every noise. Five minutes passed, then ten, finally a quarter of an hour, but we were not destined to be disappointed; at last, more than five hundred feet up the gully opposite, we saw our cook with all the coolies.

After they had descended, a rope was thrown across to them, and we succeeded by its aid in hauling a slippery pine trunk into position behind two large stones. Over this we crossed and camped on a narrow spit of level ground underneath the perpendicular walls of rock: chickens, sugar, eggs, three maunds of flour, and four sheep were amongst the spoils brought up by our cook from Bunar. That evening we ate our meal by the ruddy light of a great camp fire, with the roar of the torrent making it almost impossible to hear our voices, and underneath some gnarled and stunted pines, whose roots were firmly imbedded in the great fissures that ran up the perpendicular rock face. As the question of provisions had been settled for some time, we returned much relieved in our minds to the Diamirai nullah.

The next day, August 14th, it again rained hard nearly all day. At 2 A.M. on the 15th we started once more for the upper camp. We took with us Ragobir, Lor Khan, and a Chilasi coolie, whom I had called Richard the Third, from his likeness to the usual portraits of that monarch. More firewood and provisions and a silk tent were taken up to this camp at the head of the glacier. Two rucksacks had already been left high up on the rocks on the 9th. It was now Mummery's intention to take some more odds and ends up to where they were, and if possible push on with about a third of the provisions to about 20,000 feet, and leave them there for the final attempt. This necessitated sleeping on the top of the second rib of rocks. By the time I had arrived at the upper camp underneath Nanga Parbat I began to develop a headache, and, being otherwise ill as well, I had reluctantly to give up any idea of climbing further. Mummery, Ragobir, and Lor Khan went on, whilst I spent most of the morning watching them climb like flies up the almost perpendicular rib of rocks above me.

Nanga Parbat from the Diamirai Glacier.

But I had to get home that night, and also get the coolie home as well. This was no easy matter, for there were some steep ice slopes, with steps cut in them, and crevasses at the bottom, which so frightened poor Richard the Third, that for a long time I could not induce him even to try. In fact, ultimately I had to threaten him violently with my ice-axe. Whether he thought that it was a choice of death by cold steel above, or cold ice below in the crevasse, I don't know, but he chose the latter, and was much surprised to find that he was not going to be sacrificed after all. Then, before we got home it began to rain heavily, the mists came down, everything becoming dull and dreary, the wind sighed sorrowfully up and down the valley, and I was sorry for Mummery on the inhospitable slopes of the great mountain. Mummery spent the night on the top of the second rib of rocks, and next day he climbed about a thousand feet up the third rib, where he left a rucksack with food. The climb was carried out almost entirely in mist; in fact, in the afternoon down at the camp the mist and rain made things thoroughly uncomfortable. I was beginning to get anxious about Mummery, for he did not come back by sunset, and the night promised to be one of drenching rain. But later, in the dark, he marched back into camp, entirely wet through, but far more cheerful than the circumstances warranted, and very pleased with the climbing. His account of the ice world on Nanga Parbat was wonderful. Nowhere in the Caucasus had he seen anything to compare with it. Avalanches had fallen down thousands of feet, set at an angle of over 60 degrees, that would have almost swept away towns. The crevasses were enormous, and the rock-climbing, although difficult, was set at such a steep angle that no time would be lost in making height towards the upper glacier underneath the final peak. If only the weather would clear, Mummery was sure that we could get on to this upper glacier. But the weather sulked and was against us, it rained nearly all the next day, finishing up with a tremendous thunderstorm. In hope that fine weather would now set in, we turned into our tents for the night. About midnight, gusts of cold wind began to moan amongst the stunted pines that surrounded our tents; then, gathering in force, this demon of the mountains howled round our tents, and snow came down in driven sheets. The anger of the spirits that inhabited the mountains had been roused, we were being informed of what awaited us, should we persist in our impious endeavours to penetrate into the sanctuaries above.

Many times in the pitch darkness of the night I thought the small Mummery tent I was in would be simply torn in pieces, but towards daylight the hurricane gradually died away, and by nine o'clock the sun came out. The scene, when I emerged from the tent, I shall never forget. Bright sunshine and dazzling white snow—but where were all the groves of rhododendron bushes, from four to five feet high, that yesterday had surrounded our camp? Loaded with the snow, they had been beaten flat, and lay there plastered and stuck tight to the ground, by the ice and snow of the blizzard of the night before.

But under the double action of the sun's heat and the rapid evaporation that takes place when the barometer stands only at about sixteen inches, the snow, which was over six inches deep, soon melted, and by the afternoon had all disappeared from around our camp. On the morrow a cloudless sky and a northerly wind changed the whole aspect of affairs.

Diama Glacier.

NANGA PARBAT FROM THE DIAMIRAI GLACIER.

A—Upper Camp at the base of Nanga Parbat.
B—First rib of rocks.
C—Second rib of rocks.
D—Sleeping-place on the top of the second rib of rocks.
E—Third rib of rocks.
F—Mr. A. F. Mummery's highest point (over 20,000 feet).
G—The foot of the Diama Glacier.
H—The Diamirai Glacier.
The dotted line shows route taken.

We had a long consultation, Mummery arguing that we ought to start for Nanga Parbat at once, and make an attempt to reach the summit. His only fear was that Hastings would feel that we were not treating him fairly by starting before he had returned from Astor and could join us in the climb. But the weather had been changeable, and the Chilas coolies with us were predicting that when the next snowstorm came, it would be worse than the last, and the snow would not clear away so quickly. There seemed great probability in their predictions. At any rate, with the cold north wind the good weather would last, but we ought to make use of that good weather at once.

So, hoping that Hastings would forgive us, we started on the final attempt to reach the summit of Nanga Parbat.

Our position was as follows:—We had plenty of provisions and firewood at the camp at the head of the glacier, a tent and more provisions with some spirits and a boiling tin on the top of the second ridge of rocks, and a last rucksack with more edibles half way up the third rib of rock.