The Epic of Mount Everest. Francis Edward Younghusband
too, why—he might reach the top this same season. The instructions did not preclude an attempt. The reconnaissance was insisted on as the primary object of the year’s Expedition. And the climbers were not to make an attempt on a difficult route on the mere chance of reaching the summit: they were to go on and look for a better. But if they actually found a quite feasible route to the summit, why then, of course, they were not to be prevented from having a try.
This was one of those vague hopes with which members and leaders and organizers of expeditions buoy themselves up when they have made every preparation and discounted every danger, hardship and physical obstacle. Men’s hopes ever do stretch beyond the actual limits of their task. Though they like also that their performance should outstrip their promise. Therefore they do not publish their hopes for the multitude to scoff at. Their secret hopes they keep to themselves.
It is a far cry from London to Mount Everest (4000 miles as the crow flies). But Everest climbers are not crows—not even airmen. They had accordingly to proceed across France, down the Mediterranean Sea, down the Red Sea, across the Indian Ocean, and then across India from Bombay to Calcutta and finally to Darjiling, the assembling place of the Expedition.
Raeburn had preceded Mallory to Darjiling to collect the porters, and Howard Bury, Bullock and Wollaston were proceeding thither by different routes.
Porters for the service of the Expedition were to be enlisted. And this engagement of selected porters was a special feature of the Expedition. It was the result of a recommendation by General Bruce. Hitherto, expeditions to the Himalaya had been dependent on the inhabitants of the highest villages for the carriage of their stores and equipment. Men were caught up from these villages and induced to carry loads. Sometimes this was satisfactory. Sometimes it was not. For quite small climbs it answered. But for expeditions of the size of an Everest Expedition it was impracticable. Moreover, in this case the climbers would have to depend on Tibetan villagers, and it might not be possible to induce even a few Tibetans to hazard the hardships and dangers of climbing on Mount Everest.
General Bruce’s idea was, then, to take measures well beforehand to get together fit and willing men from the neighbourhood of Darjiling, and from these to select about forty of the best. These forty would then be formed into a corps. They would be infused with an esprit de corps. Appeal would be made to their spirit of adventure, their love of fame and honour, their ambition to make a name for themselves. And they would be paid well, fed well, equipped well—and also ruled well, so that by the childish indulgences to which they are prone they would not risk the success of the Expedition.
In this part of the Himalaya there are plenty of hardy, cheery men, not very venturesome on their own initiative, but ready enough to join in an adventure when some one would lead them. Among the Sherpas of Eastern Nepal are many such. And there are Bhotias from round Dariling and Tibetans settled in Sikkim. From amongst all these it would be possible to raise a most efficient corps. And they would all be men who from their youth had been accustomed to carrying loads—and carrying them at high altitudes, some of them as high as 18,000 or 19,000 feet.
Here at Darjiling, early in May, porters, climbers, stores and equipment of all kinds were gradually assembled and local stores, such as tea, sugar, flour and potatoes were purchased. And the climbers were entertained and the Expedition given every assistance by Lord Ronaldshay, then Governor of Bengal.
For natural beauty Darjiling is surely unsurpassed in the world. From all countries travellers come there to see the famous view of Kangchenjunga, 28,150 feet in height, and only 40 miles distant. Darjiling itself is 7000 feet above sea-level and is set in a forest of oaks, magnolia, rhododendrons, laurels and sycamores. And through these forests the observer looks down the steep mountain-sides to the Rangeet River only 1000 feet above sea-level, and then up and up through tier after tier of forest-clad ranges, each bathed in a haze of deeper and deeper purple, till the line of snow is reached; and then still up to the summit of Kangchenjunga, now so pure and ethereal we can scarcely believe it is part of the solid earth on which we stand; and so high it seems part of the very sky itself.
And yet these Everest climbers were aspiring after something higher still. Kangchenjunga was but the third highest mountain. So it they spurned. “Only the highest,” was their motto.
By the middle of May Howard Bury had collected his whole party and their equipment and stores. Dr. A. M. Kellas had come in from his winter tour in Sikkim, but very much the worse for it. In the early spring he had spent several nights on the slopes of Kabru with very low temperatures. And he was not a man who looked after himself: he subsisted mainly on what the country could produce, and this particular country did not produce very wholesome or nutritious food. Consequently, he arrived at Darjiling in very poor condition. And this only just before the Expedition started, so he had no time to recuperate. The two survey officers, Morshead and Wheeler, deputed by the Government of India to make the survey, had also arrived. They were both strong, hardy men accustomed to ascending the minor peaks of the Himalaya, and Wheeler had climbed in Canada; he was an expert in the Canadian system of Photo Survey and was prepared to use it on this Expedition. Dr. A. M. Heron, of the Geological Survey of India, also joined the Expedition. And these with the members from England made up the party.
But the Expedition could not proceed from Darjiling direct to Everest; they had to make a long détour. The direct route would have been westward through Nepal; the Expedition had to go eastward through Tibet because Nepal was forbidden land.
Howard Bury and his party made, therefore, for the Tista Valley of Sikkim, out of which they would climb up to the Jelap La, following the main trade route to Lhasa for some marches—not a high road for carts, but a rough road for mules. They would pass through wonderful forests at first and then have to march for 200 miles over the lofty arid plateau of Tibet. But they would reap this advantage, that they would at the end be half-way up the mountain, for the plateau of Tibet is about 15,000 feet high. And through being at that height for some weeks they would have been acclimatizing themselves for attaining higher heights.
They started from Darjiling on May 18th. The night before the rain had come down in torrents—as is its wont in Darjiling for a great number of days in the year: such glories as the view of Kangchenjunga must always be paid for. The rain held up soon after the Expedition started, but the mountain-sides were wreathed in soft grey mists and every moss-hung branch and tree dripped with moisture all day long. This indeed was unpleasant, yet this dripping forest had a beauty of its own. Every growth was fresh. The green was brilliant. And the ferns and orchids, the hanging mosses and long-trailing creepers were ever-varying delights.
Tea-gardens, useful maybe, but, in their regular rows of low green bushes, not beautiful like the forest round them, were passed on the way. And now the path began to descend from the ridge; the air became hotter and hotter; men and beasts were bathed in perspiration; the vegetation changed with the climate; tree ferns twenty to thirty feet in height, wild bananas, and palms appeared; and most glorious of all, numbers of gorgeous butterflies.
When the Tista River was reached the Expedition was, in fact, in a tropical climate, for the river is only 700 feet above sea-level and the latitude is only 26°. The heat was intense and in this confined valley, with a moist atmosphere and seldom any wind, the vegetation is that of a tropical forest. And what constitutes one of the glories of this valley is that it extends upward to the very glaciers of Kangchenjunga, so that plant and animal life from tropical to arctic are herein found.
At Kalimpong, which is about 3000 feet above the Tista, they were entertained by the well-known Dr. Graham, and found a beautiful garden filled with roses and scarlet hibiscus and a large-flowered mauve solanum growing up the pillars of the verandahs.
At Pedong, Howard Bury notes great trees of scarlet hibiscus, daturas and bougainvillæas. And wonderful datura hedges, with trees fifteen to twenty feet in height, laden with hundreds of white trumpet-shaped blooms 8 inches in diameter and fully a foot long were seen. At night these great white flowers glowed as though with phosphorescence and they had a strangely sweet smell. There were also orchids of the Dendrobium, Coelogene, and Cymbidium families, mauve, white and yellow—some with sprays 18 inches long.
The flowers and the butterflies were a wonder. But the weather was dreadful. Rain fell in sheets.