FRANK ADVENTURE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 22 January 1931, Page 5

FRANK ADVENTURE

“It is not often that the narrative of an adventure, deliberated lu.t genuine, is so amusing, yet sensational, as Mr Symlhe’s,” writes 31 r H. M. Tomlinson in bis review of “The Kangchengjunga Adventure.” “As lie puts it- himself, with hearty candour: T have endeavoured to record my own personal adventures of what was primarily an adventure. It is now no longer necessary to disguise adventure shamefacedly uniter the cloak of science.’ We are glad of that: Let the physicists explain why the ice of the Alps is like ice, but the ice of the Himalays is like rubber. It is sufficient for us to realise, from the author’s nervous words, that the cutting of steps in rubber, while hanging on at 20,000 ft. in an Arctic blast, waiting for Kangchengjunga to launch yet another avalanche across that glacier amid the stars, is a job for men with sound nerves. But the nerves get worn. The storyteller himself confesses though a cheerful alpinist, that the great mountain frightened him. He had never experienced anything like it before. He was unhappy while on it. There was no shelter from those avalanches, which were constant and terrific, no place of safety. The supernal cliffs of ice, the ends of glaciers projecting into space, were 1000 ft. in thickness. Their vicious nature caused them to overhang in a way that would be unnatural in Europe. When a section collapsed, then a million tons fell, shooting in bulk with frightful velocity across the lower slopes.”