Meanwhile Bullock had not been idle. He paid a visit to the North cwm, more successful than mine in July, for he reached the pa.s.s leading over into Nepal under the North-west arete and had perfectly clear views of Chang La, of which he brought back some valuable photos. But perhaps an even greater satisfaction than reckoning the results of what we both felt was a successful day was ours, when we listened in our tents that evening at the base camp to the growling of thunder and reflected that the fair interval already ended had been caught and turned to good account.

In snow and sleet and wind next morning, July 25, our tents were struck.

We turned our backs on the Rongbuk Glacier and hastened along the path to Chobuk. The valley was somehow changed as we came down, and more agreeable to the eye. Presently I discovered the reason. The gra.s.s had grown on the hillside since we went up. We were coming down to summer green.

CHAPTER XIV

THE EASTERN APPROACH

The new base at Kharta established by Colonel Howard-Bury at the end of July was well suited to meet the needs of climbers, and no less agreeable, I believe, to all members of the Expedition. At the moderate elevation of 12,300 feet and in an almost ideal climate, where the air was always warm but never hot or stuffy, where the sun shone brightly but never fiercely, and clouds floated about the hills and brought moisture from the South, but never too much rain, here the body could find a delicious change when tired of the discipline of high-living, and in a place so accessible to traders from Nepal could easily be fed with fresh food. But perhaps after life in the Rongbuk Valley, with hardly a green thing to look at and too much of the endless unfriendly stone-shoots and the ugly waste of glaciers, and even after visions of sublime snow-beauty, a change was more needed for the mind. It was a delight to be again in a land of flowery meadows and trees and crops; to look into the deep green gorge only a mile away where the Arun goes down into Nepal was to be reminded of a rich vegetation and teeming life, a contrast full of pleasure with Nature's n.i.g.g.ardliness in arid, wind-swept Tibet; and the forgotten rustle of wind in the willows came back as a soothing sound full of grateful memories, banishing the least thought of disagreeable things.

The Kharta base, besides, was convenient for our reconnaissance. Below us a broad glacier stream joined the Arun above the gorge; it was the first met with since we had left the Rongbuk stream; it came down from the West and therefore, presumably, from Everest. To follow it up was an obvious plan as the next stage in our activities. After four clear days for idleness and reorganisation at Kharta we set forth again on August 2 with this object. The valley of our glacier stream would lead us, we supposed, to the mountain; in two days, perhaps, we should see Chang La ahead of us. A local headman provided by the Jongpen and entrusted with the task of leading us to Ch.o.m.olungma would show us where it might be necessary to cross the stream and, in case the valley forked, would ensure us against a bad mistake.

The start on this day was not propitious. We had enjoyed the sheltered ease at Kharta; the coolies were dilatory and unwilling; the distribution of loads was muddled; there was much discontent about rations, and our Sirdar was no longer trusted by the men. At a village where we stopped to buy tsampa some 3 miles up the valley I witnessed a curious scene. As the tsampa was sold it had to be measured. The Sirdar on his knees before a large pile of finely ground flour was ladling it into a bag with a disused Quaker Oats tin. Each measure-full was counted by all the coolies standing round in a circle; they were making sure of having their full ration. Nor was this all; they wanted to see as part of their supplies, not only tsampa and rice, but tea, sugar, b.u.t.ter, cooking fat and meat on the Army scale. This was a new demand altogether beyond the bargain made with them. The point, of course, had to be clearly made, that for their so-called luxuries I must be trusted to do my best with the surplus money (100 tankas or thereabouts) remaining over from their allowances after buying the flour and rice. These luxury supplies were always somewhat of a difficulty; the coolies had been very short of such things on the Northern side--we had no doubt that some of the ration money had found its way into the Sirdar's pockets. It would be possible, we hoped, to prevent this happening again. But even so the matter was not simple. What the coolies wanted was not always to be bought, or at the local price it was too expensive. On this occasion a bountiful supply of chillies solved our difficulty. After too many words, and not all in the best temper, the sight of so many of the red, bright, attractive chillies prevailed; at length my orders were obeyed; the coolies took up their loads and we started off again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PETHANG-TSE.]

With so much dissatisfaction in the air it was necessary for Bullock and me to drive rather than lead the party. In a valley where there are many individual farms and little villages, the coolies' path is well beset with pitfalls and with gin. Without discipline the Sahib might easily find himself at the end of a day's march with perhaps only half his loads. It was a slow march this day; we had barely accomplished 8 miles, when Bullock and I with the hindmost came round a shoulder on the right bank about 4 p.m. and found the tents pitched on a gra.s.sy shelf and looking up a valley where a stream came in from our left. The Tibetan headman and his Tibetan coolies who were carrying some of our loads had evidently no intention of going further, and after some argument I was content to make the stipulation that if the coolies (our own as well as the Tibetans) chose to encamp after half a day's march, they should do a double march next day.

The prospect was far from satisfactory: we were at a valley junction of which we had heard tell, and the headman pointed the way to the left.

Here indeed was a valley, but no glacier stream. It was a pleasant green nullah covered with rhododendrons and juniper, but presented nothing that one may expect of an important valley. Moreover, so far as I could learn, there were no villages in this direction: I had counted on reaching one that night with the intention of buying provisions, more particularly goats and b.u.t.ter. Where were we going and what should we find? The headman announced that it would take us five more days to reach Ch.o.m.olungma: he was told that he must bring us there in two, and so the matter was left.

If the coolies behaved badly on this first day, they certainly made up for it on the second. The bed of the little valley which we now followed rose steeply ahead of us, and the path along the hill slopes on its left bank soon took us up beyond the rhododendrons. We came at last for a mid-day halt to the sh.o.r.es of a lake. It was the first I had seen in the neighbourhood of Everest; a little blue lake, perhaps 600 yards long, set on a flat shelf up there among the clouds and rocks, a sympathetic place harbouring a wealth of little rock plants on its steep banks; and as our present height by the aneroid was little less than 17,000 feet, we were a.s.sured that on this Eastern side of Everest we should find Nature in a gentler mood. But we were not satisfied with our direction; we were going too much to the South. Through the mists we had seen nothing to help us. For a few moments some crags had appeared to the left looming surprisingly big; but that was our only peep, and it told us nothing. Perhaps from the pa.s.s ahead of us we should have better fortune.

At the Langma La when we reached it we found ourselves to be well 4,000 feet above our camp of the previous night. We had followed a track, but not always a smooth one, and as we stayed in hopes of a clearing view, I began to wonder whether the Tibetan coolies would manage to arrive with their loads; they were notably less strong than our Sherpas and yet had been burdened with the wet heavy tents. Meanwhile we saw nothing above our own height. We had hoped that once our col was crossed we should bear more directly Westward again; but the Tibetan headman when he came up with good news of his coolies, pointed our way across a deep valley below us, and the direction of his pointing was nearly due South.

Everest, we imagined, must be nearly due West of Kharta, and our direction at the end of this second day by a rough dead reckoning would be something like South-west. We were more than ever mystified.

Fortunately our difficulties with the coolies seemed to be ended. Two of our own men stayed at the pa.s.s to relieve the Tibetans of the tents and bring them quickly on. Grumblings had subsided in friendliness, and all marched splendidly on this day. They were undepressed with the gloomy circ.u.mstance of again encamping in the rain.

In the Sahibs' tent that night there took place a long and fragmentary conversation with the headman, our Sirdar acting as interpreter. We gained one piece of information: there were two Ch.o.m.olungmas. It was not difficult to guess that, if Everest were one, the other must be Makalu.

We asked to be guided to the furthest Ch.o.m.olungma.

The morning of August 4 was not more favourable to our reconnaissance.

We went down steeply to the valley bed, crossed a stream and a rickety bridge, and wound on through lovely meadows and much dwarf rhododendron till we came to the end of a glacier and mounted by its left bank.

Towards mid-day the weather showed signs of clearing; suddenly on our left across the glacier we saw gigantic precipices looming through the clouds. We guessed they must belong in some way to Makalu. We were told that this was the first Ch.o.m.olungma, while the valley we were now following would lead us to the other. It was easy to conclude that one valley, this one, must come up on the North side of Makalu all the way to Everest. But we saw no more. In a few moments the grey clouds blowing swiftly up from below had enveloped us, rain began to fall heavily, and when eventually we came to broad meadows above the glaciers, where yaks were grazing and Tibetan tents were pitched, we were content to stop. At least we should have the advantage here of good b.u.t.ter and cream from this dairy farm. There was indeed no point in going farther; we had no desire to run our heads against the East face of Everest; we must now wait for a view.

The weather signs were decidedly more hopeful as I looked out of our tent next morning, and we decided at once to spend the day in some sort of reconnaissance up the valley. Presently away at the head of it we saw the clouds breaking about the mountain-sides. Everest itself began to clear; the great North-east arete came out, cutting the sky to the right; and little by little the whole Eastern face was revealed to us.

As I recall now our first impression of the amazing scenery around us, I seem chiefly to remember the fresh surprise and vivid delight which, for all we had seen before, seemed a new sensation. Even the map of the Kama Valley, now that we have it, may stir the imagination. Besides Everest itself the crest of the South Peak, 28,000 feet high, and its prodigious South-east shoulder overlook the Western end; while Makalu, 12 miles from Everest, thrusts out Northwards a great arm and another peak to choke the exit; so that whereas the frontier ridge from Everest to Makalu goes in a South-easterly direction, the Kangshung Glacier in the main valley runs nearly due East. In this s.p.a.cious manner three of the five highest summits in the world overlook the Kama Valley.

And we now saw a scene of magnificence and splendour even more remarkable than the facts suggest. Among all the mountains I have seen, and, if we may judge by photographs, all that ever have been seen, Makalu is incomparable for its spectacular and rugged grandeur. It was significant to us that the astonishing precipices rising above us on the far side of the glacier as we looked across from our camp, a terrific awe-inspiring sweep of snow-bound rocks, were the sides not so much of an individual mountain, but rather of a gigantic bastion or outwork defending Makalu. At the broad head of the Kama Valley the two summits of Everest are enclosed between the North-east arete and the South-east arete bending round from the South Peak; below them is a basin of tumbled ice well marked by a number of moraines and receiving a series of tributaries pouring down between the b.u.t.tresses which support the mountain faces in this immense cirque. Perhaps the astonishing charm and beauty here lie in the complications half hidden behind a mask of apparent simplicity, so that one's eye never tires of following up the lines of the great aretes, of following down the arms pushed out from their great shoulders, and of following along the broken edge of the hanging glacier covering the upper half of this Eastern face of Everest so as to determine at one point after another its relation with the b.u.t.tresses below and with their abutments against the rocks which it covers. But for me the most magnificent and sublime in mountain scenery can be made lovelier by some more tender touch; and that, too, is added here. When all is said about Ch.o.m.olungma, the G.o.ddess Mother of the World, and about Ch.o.m.o Uri, the G.o.ddess of the Turquoise Mountain, I come back to the valley, the valley bed itself, the broad pastures, where our tents lay, where cattle grazed and where b.u.t.ter was made, the little stream we followed up to the valley head, wandering along its well-turfed banks under the high moraine, the few rare plants, saxifrages, gentians and primulas, so well watered there, and a soft, familiar blueness in the air which even here may charm us. Though I bow to the G.o.ddesses I cannot forget at their feet a gentler spirit than theirs, a little shy perhaps, but constant in the changing winds and variable moods of mountains and always friendly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUMMIT OF MAKALU.]

The deviation from our intended line of approach involved by entering the Kama Valley was not one which we were likely to regret. In so far as our object was to follow up a glacier to the North Col we were now on the wrong side of a watershed. A spur of mountains continues Eastwards from the foot of Everest's North-east arete; these were on our right as we looked up the Kama Valley; the glacier of our quest must lie on the far side of them. But the pursuit of this glacier was not our sole object. We had also to examine both the East face and North-east arete of our mountain and determine the possibilities of attack on this side.

A plan was now made to satisfy us in all ways. We chose as our objective a conspicuous snowy summit, Carpo-ri, on the watershed and apparently the second to the East from the foot of the North-east arete. Could we climb it we should not only see over into the valley North of us and up to Chang La itself, we hoped, but also examine, from the point most convenient for judging the steepness of its slopes, the whole of the Eastern side of Mount Everest.

On August 6 the Whymper tents were taken up, and a camp was made under a moraine at about 17,500 feet, where a stream flows quietly through a flat s.p.a.ce before plunging steeply down into the valley. In this sheltered spot we bid defiance to the usual snowstorm of the afternoon; perhaps as night came on and snow was still falling we were vaguely disquieted, but we refused to believe in anything worse than the heavens' pa.s.sing spite, and before we put out our candles the weather cleared. We went out into the keen air; it was a night of early moons.

Mounting a little rise of stones and faintly crunching under our feet the granular atoms of fresh fallen snow we were already aware of some unusual loveliness in the moment and the scenes. We were not kept waiting for the supreme effects; the curtain was withdrawn. Rising from the bright mists Mount Everest above us was immanent, vast, incalculable--no fleeting apparition of elusive dream-form: nothing could have been more set and permanent, stedfast like Keats's star, "in lone splendour hung aloft the night," a watcher of all the nights, diffusing, it seemed universally, an exalted radiance.

It is the property of all that is most sublime in mountain scenery to be uniquely splendid, or at least to seem so, and it is commonly the fate of the sublime in this sort very soon to be mixed with what is trivial.

Not infrequently we had experience of wonderful moments; it is always exciting to spend a night under the stars. And such a situation may be arranged quite comfortably; lying with his head but just within the tent a man has but to stir in his sleep to see, at all events, half the starry sky. Then perhaps thoughts come tumbling from the heavens and slip in at the tent-door; his dozing is an ecstasy: until, at length, the alarm-watch sounds; and after?... Mean considerations din it all away, all that delight. On the morning of August 7 the trivial, with us, preponderated. Something more than the usual inertia reigned in our frozen camp at 2 a.m. The cook was feeling unwell; the coolies prolonged their minutes of grace after the warning shout, dallied with the thought of meeting the cold air, procrastinated, drew the blankets more closely round them, and--snored once more. An expedition over the snow to the outlying tents by a half-clad Sahib, who expects to enjoy at least the advantage of withdrawing himself at the last moment from the friendly down-bag, is calculated to disturb the rec.u.mbency of others; and a kick-off in this manner to the day's work is at all events exhilarating.

The task of extricating our frozen belongings, where they lay and ought not to have lain, was performed with alacrity if not with zeal; feet did not loiter over slippery boulders as we mounted the moraine, and in spite of the half-hour lost, or gained, we were well up by sunrise. Even before the first glimmer of dawn the snow-mantled, slumbering monsters around us had been somehow touched to life by a faint blue light showing their form and presence--a light that changed as the day grew to a pale yellow on Everest and then to a bright blue-grey before it flamed all golden as the sun hit the summit and the shadow crept perceptibly down the slope until the whole mountain stood bare and splendid in the morning glory. With some premonition of what was in store for us we had already halted to enjoy the scene, and I was able to observe exactly how the various ridges and summits caught the sun. It was remarkable that while Everest was never, for a moment, pink, Makalu was tinged with the redder shades, and the colour of the sky in that direction was a livid Chinese blue red-flushed. Its bearing from us was about South-east by South, and its distance nearly twice that of Everest, which lay chiefly to the South-west.

The first crux of the expedition before us would evidently be the ascent of a steep wall up to the conspicuous col lying East of our mountain.

The least laborious way was offered by an outcrop of rocks. The obstacle looked decidedly formidable and the coolies had little or no experience of rock-climbing. But it proved a pleasure reminiscent of many good moments once again to be grasping firm granite and to be encouraging novices to tread delicately by throwing down an occasional stone to remind them of the perils of clumsy movements. The coolies, as usual, were apt pupils, and after agreeable exertions and one gymnastic performance we all reached the col at 9 a.m. with no bleeding scalps.

We had already by this hour taken time to observe the great Eastern face of Mount Everest, and more particularly the lower edge of the hanging glacier; it required but little further gazing to be convinced--to know that almost everywhere the rocks below must be exposed to ice falling from this glacier; that if, elsewhere, it might be possible to climb up, the performance would be too arduous, would take too much time and would lead to no convenient platform; that, in short, other men, less wise, might attempt this way if they would, but, emphatically, it was not for us.

Our interest was rather in the other direction. We had now gained the watershed. Below us on the far side was a glacier flowing East, and beyond it two important rock peaks, which we at once suspected must be two triangulated points each above 23,000 feet. Was this at last the valley observed so long ago from the hill above Shiling, more than 50 miles away, to point up towards the gap between Changtse and Everest? As yet we could not say. The head of the glacier was out of sight behind the Northern slopes of our mountain. We must ascend further, probably to its summit, to satisfy our curiosity--to see, we hoped, Changtse and its relation to this glacier, and perhaps the Chang La of our quest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOUTH-EAST RIDGE OF MOUNT EVEREST from above the 20,000 foot camp, Kharta Valley.]

The task before us was not one which had suggested from a distant view any serious difficulties. The angle of sight from our breakfast-place on the col to the next white summit West of us was certainly not very steep. But no continuous ridge would lead us upwards. The East face in front of us and the South face to our left presented two bands of fortification, crowned each by a flat emplacement receding a considerable distance, before the final cone. We knew already that the snow's surface, despite a thin crust, could not hold us, and counted on snow-shoes to save labour at the gentler angles. But the escarpments in front of us were imposing. The first yielded to a frontal attack pushed home with a proper after-breakfast vigour. The second when we reached it was a more formidable obstacle. The steepness of the Eastern slope was undeniable and forbidding and the edge of its junction with the South side was defined by a cornice. On that side, however, lay the only hope.

We had first to traverse a broad gully. The powdery snow lay deep; we hesitated on the brink. Here, if anywhere, the unmelted powdery substance was likely to avalanche. Confidence was restored in sufficient measure by contemplating an island of rock. Here lay a solution. By the aid of its sound anchorage the party was secured across the dangerous pa.s.sage. With his rope adequately belayed by a coolie, though the manner was hardly professional, the leader hewed at the cornice above his head, fixed a fist-and-axe hold in the crest and struggled over. Such performances are not accomplished at heights above 20,000 feet without the feeling that something has been done. Appearances suggested the necessity of establishing the whole party firmly above the cornice before proceeding many steps upward, and the first man had the diversion of observing at his leisure the ungraceful att.i.tudes and explosive grunts of men strong indeed, but unaccustomed to meet this kind of obstacle. But with the usual menace of clouds, which even now were filling the head of the Kama Valley, it was no season for delay; and it was no place to be treated lightly. The angle was quite as steep as we liked; on the slopes to our left again we should evidently be exposed to the danger of an avalanche. It was necessary to avoid treading on our frail cornice and no less important to keep near the edge. Here a foot of powdery snow masked a disintegrated substance of loose ice. Nothing less than a vigorous swinging blow had any other effect than to bury the pick and require a fourfold effort to pull it out again. Luckily one or even two such blows usually sufficed to make a firm step. But 400 feet of such work seemed an ample quant.i.ty. If was a relief at length to reach level snow, to don our rackets again and to follow a coolie bursting with energy now sent first to tread a path. At 12.15 p.m. we reached the far edge of this flat shoulder lying under the final slopes of our mountain and at the most 500 feet below the summit.

No one without experience of the problem could guess how difficult it may be to sit down on a perfectly flat place with snow-shoes strapped to the feet. To squat is clearly impossible; and if the feet are pushed out in front the projection behind the heel tends to tilt the body backwards so that the back is strained in the mere effort to sit without falling.

The remedy of course is to take off the snow-shoes; but the human mountaineer after exhausting efforts is too lazy for that at an elevation of 21,000 feet. He prefers not to sit; he chooses to lie--in the one convenient posture under the circ.u.mstances--flat upon his back and with his toes and snow-shoes turned vertically upwards. On this occasion the majority of the party without more ado turned up their toes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DIAGRAM SHOWING THAT THE KHARTA GLACIER DOES NOT LEAD TO THE NORTH COL.]

The situation, however, was one of the greatest interest. We were still separated from Mount Everest by a spur at our own height turning Northwards from the foot of the North-east arete and by the bay enclosed between this and its continuation Eastward to which our mountain belonged. But the distance from the North-east arete was small enough and we were now looking almost directly up its amazing crest. If any doubts remained at this time as to that line of attack, they now received a _coup de grace_. Not only was the crest itself seen to be both sharp and steep, suggesting an almost infinite labour, but the slopes on either hand appeared in most places an impracticable alternative; and leading up to the great rock towers of the North-east shoulder, the final section, the point of a cruel sickle, appeared effectually to bar further progress should anyone have been content to spend a week or so on the lower parts. To discern so much required no prolonged study; to the right (North) the country was more intricate.

The summit of Changtse was eventually revealed, as the clouds cleared off, beyond, apparently a long way beyond, the crest of the spur in front of us. To the extreme right, looking past the final slopes of the white cone above us was a more elevated skyline and below it the upper part of the glacier, the lower end of which we had seen earlier in the day descending Eastward. But its extreme limit was not quite visible. We had still to ask the question as to where exactly it lay. Could this glacier conceivably proceed in an almost level course up to Chang La, itself? Or was it cut off much nearer to us by the high skyline which we saw beyond it? Was it possible, as in the second case must be, that this skyline was continuous with the East arete of Changtse, the whole forming the left bank of the glacier? If no answer was absolutely certain, the probability at least was all on one side--on the wrong side alike for our present and our future plans. We could hardly doubt that the glacier-head lay not far away under Chang La, but here near at hand under another col; beyond this must be the glacier of our quest, turning East, as presumably it must turn beyond the skyline we saw now, and beyond the rock peaks which we had observed to the North of us when first we reached the watershed.

One more effort was now required so that we might see a little more.

Chang La itself was still invisible. Might we not see it from the summit of our mountain? And was it not in any case an attractive summit? An examination of the various pairs of upturned toes where the prostrate forms were still grouped grotesquely in the snow was not encouraging.

But the most vigorous of the coolies was with us, Nyima, a st.u.r.dy boy of eighteen, who from the very start of the Expedition had consistently displayed a willing spirit in every emergency. To my demand for volunteers he responded immediately, and soon persuaded a second coolie, Dasno, who had been going very strongly on this day, to accompany him.

As the three of us started off the clouds suddenly boiled up from below and enveloped us completely. A few minutes brought us to the foot of the steepest slopes; we took off our snow-shoes and crossed a bergschrund, wading up to our thighs. Dasno had already had enough and fell out. But the conical shape of our peak was just sufficiently irregular to offer a defined blunt edge where two surfaces intersected. Even here the snow was deep enough to be a formidable obstacle at that steep angle; but the edge was safe from avalanches. As we struggled on I glanced repeatedly away to the left. Presently through a hole in the clouds all was clear for a moment to the West; again I saw Changtse, and now my eyes followed the line of its arete descending towards Everest until the col itself was visible over the spur in front of us. The view was little enough; the mere rim appeared; the wall or the slopes below it, all that I most wanted to see, remained hidden. We struggled on to the top, in all nearly an hour's work of the most exhausting kind. The reward was in the beauty of the spot, the faintly-defined edges of clean snow and the convex surfaces bent slightly back from the steepness on every side to form the most graceful summit I have seen. To the North-east we saw clearly for a minute down the glacier. The rest was cloud, a thin veil, but all too much, inexorably hiding from us Changtse and Chang La.

A disappointment? Perhaps. But that sort of suffering cannot be prolonged in a mind sufficiently interested. Possibly it is never a genuine emotion; rather an automatic reaction after too sanguine hopes.

And such hopes had no part in our system. We counted on nothing. Days as we found them were not seldom of the disappointing kind; this one had been of the best, remarkably clear and fine. If we were baffled that was no worse than we expected. To be bewildered was all in the game. But our sensation was something beyond bewilderment. We felt ourselves to be foiled. We were unpleasantly stung by this slap in the face. We had indeed solved all doubts as to the East face and North-east arete, and had solved them quickly. But the way to Chang La, which had seemed almost within our grasp, had suddenly eluded us, and had escaped, how far we could not tell. Though its actual distance from our summit might be short, as indeed it must be, the glacier of our quest appeared now at the end of a receding vista; and this was all our prospect.

Our next plans were made on the descent. With the relaxation of physical effort the feeling of dazed fatigue wears off and a mind duly strung to activity may work well enough. The immediate object was to reach our tents not too late to send a coolie down to the base camp the same evening; on the following morning a reinforcement of four men would enable us to carry down all our loads with sufficient ease, and with no delay we should move the whole party along the next stage back towards Langma La--and thus save a day. The main idea was simple. It still seemed probable that the elusive glacier drained ultimately Eastwards, in which case its waters _must_ flow into the Kharta stream; thither we had now to retrace our steps and follow up the main valley as we had originally intended; it might be necessary to investigate more valleys than one, but there sooner or later a way would be found. Only, time was short. At the earliest we could be back in the Kharta Valley on August 9. By August 20 I reckoned the preliminary reconnaissance should come to an end, if we were to have sufficient time before the beginning of September for rest and reorganisation at Kharta--and such was the core of our plan.

These projects left out of account an entirely new factor. In the early stages of the reconnaissance I had taken careful note of the party's health. One or two of the coolies had quickly fallen victims to the high alt.i.tudes; but the rest seemed steadily to grow stronger. Nothing had so much surprised us as the rapid acclimatisation of the majority, and the good effects, so far as they appeared, of living in high camps. Both Bullock and myself left the Rongbuk Valley feeling as fit as we could wish to feel. All qualms about our health had subsided. For my part I was a confirmed optimist, and never imagined for myself the smallest deviation from my uniform standard of health and strength. On August 7, as we toiled over the neve in the afternoon, I felt for the first time a symptom of weariness beyond muscular fatigue and beyond the vague la.s.situde of mountain-sickness. By the time we reached the moraine I had a bad headache. In the tent at last I was tired and shivering and there spent a fevered night. The next morning broke with undeniable glory. A photograph of our yesterday's conquest must be obtained. I dragged myself and the quarter-plate camera a few steps up to the crest of the moraine--only to find that a further peregrination of perhaps 300 yards would be necessary for my purpose: and 300 yards was more than I could face. I was perforce content with less interesting exposures and returned to breakfast with the dismal knowledge that for the moment at all events I was _hors de combat_. We learned a little later that Colonel Howard-Bury had arrived the night before in our base camp. It was easily decided to spend the day there with him--the day I had hoped to save; after the long dragging march down the green way, which on the ascent had been so pleasant with b.u.t.terflies and flowers, I was obliged to spend it in bed.

Three days later, on August 11, our tents were pitched in a sheltered place well up the Kharta Valley, at a height of about 16,500 feet. Two tributary streams had been pa.s.sed by, the first coming in from the North as being clearly too small to be of consequence, and the second from the South, because wherever its source might be, it could not be far enough to the North. Ahead of us we had seen that the valley forked; we must follow the larger stream and then no doubt we should come soon enough to the glacier of our quest and be able at last to determine whether it would serve us to approach Chang La. August 12, a day of necessary idleness after three long marches, was spent by the coolies in collecting fuel, of which we were delighted to observe a great abundance, rhododendron and gobar all about us, and, only a short way down the valley, the best we could hope for, juniper. The last march had been too much for me, and again I was obliged to keep my bed with a sore throat and swollen glands.

It seemed certain that the next two days must provide the climax or anticlimax of our whole reconnaissance. The mystery must surely now be penetrated and the most important discovery of all be made. A compet.i.tion with my companion for the honour of being first was, I hope, as far from my thoughts as ever it had been. From the start Bullock and I had shared the whole campaign and worked and made our plans together, and neither for a moment had envied the other the monopoly of a particular adventure. Nevertheless, after all that had pa.s.sed, the experience of being left out at the finish would not be agreeable to me; I confess that not to be in at the death after leading the hunt so long was a bitter expectation. But the hunt must not be stopped, and on the morning of August 13, from the ungrateful comfort of my sleeping-bag, I waved farewell to Bullock. How many days would he be absent before he came to tell his story, and what sort of story would it be? Would he know for certain that the way was found? or how much longer would our doubts continue?

It was impossible to stay in bed with such thoughts, and by the middle of the morning I was sitting in the sun to write home my dismal tale. A hint from one of the coolies interrupted my meditations; I looked round and now saw, to my great surprise and unfeigned delight, the approaching figure of Major Morshead. I had long been hoping that he might be free to join us; and he arrived at the due moment to cheer my present solitude, to strengthen the party, and to help us when help was greatly needed. Moreover, he brought from Wollaston for my use a medical dope; stimulated by the unusual act of drug-taking, or possibly by the drug itself, I began to entertain a hope for the morrow, a feeling incommunicably faint but distinguishably a hope.

Meanwhile Bullock, though he had not started early, had got off soon enough in the morning to pitch his tents if all went well some hours before dark, and in all probability at least so far up as to be within view of the glacier snout. As the night was closing in a coolie was observed running down the last steep sandy slope to our camp. He brought a chit from Bullock: "I can see up the glacier ahead of me and it ends in another high pa.s.s. I shall get to the pa.s.s to-morrow morning if I can, and ought to see our glacier over it. But it looks, after all, as though the most unlikely solution is the right one and the glacier goes out into the Rongbuk Valley."

Into the Rongbuk Valley! We had discussed the possibility. The glacier coming in there from the East remained unexplored. But even if we left out of account all that was suggested by the East arete of Changtse and other features of this country, there remained the unanswerable difficulty about the stream, the little stream which we had but just failed to cross in the afternoon of our first expedition. How could so little water drain so large an area of ice as must exist on this supposition?