EVEREST EXPEDITION.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 February 1922, Page 10

EVEREST EXPEDITION.

EXPLORERS WELCOME TO LONDON. THE ONE WAY UP. A LAND OF VERDURE AND BEAUTY. London, Dec. 23. Interesting stories have been told of the efforts that have been made to find a way to the top of Mount Everest. Members of the preliminary expedition are now back in London, and the public have had an opportunity of hearing first-hand the story of the great work that has been undertaken, and of seeing on the screen the wonderful photographs of that little-known part of the world. And here it may be said that those photographs entirely dissipate the idea which is so frequently held that the country surrounding the highest peak in the world is a desolate and barren wilderness. Thick, beautiful forest and flowering plants grow well up the mountain sides, and fill the lower valleys, and animal and insect life abounds.

This week Colonel Howard Burry, the leader of the expedition, lectured before a joint meeting o-f the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club, and Mr. Mallory, who was one of the climbing party, described their efforts to find the approach by . which the final assault will be made next year. Sir F. Younghusband (president of the Royal Geographical Society) also gave a lecture at the Forum Club, when Miss B. Pullen-Burry, who is well known in New Zealand, presided. Previously she had entertained Sir Francis at dinner, and Sir James Allen was among the guests. PRIMARY OBJECT ACCOMPLISHED. In welcoming back Colonel Burry, Sir F. Younghusband said that the members of the expedition were not instructed to attempt to reach the summit or to break “records.” That task was to be reserved for next year’s expedition. But they were expected to find out the most feasible way to the top, so that the coming party might, without hesitation, go full speed ahead along that route. That object they had unquestionably acI complished. “Seek ye first the very highest, and all these things shall be added unto you.” They sought first the highest mountain in the world, and already a number of delightful things had been added unto them. They had Colonel Burry’s graphic telegrams and the magnificent photographs which he and Mr. Wollaston sent back. The latter’s natural history collections, including seeds—already planted at Kew and Edinburgh and in the Royal Horticultural Society’s Gardens—of new or rare i primulas, gentians, and rhododendrons and other plants, maps for Major Morshead and Major Wheeler, and Dr. Horen’s account of the geology of the region, were on the way. Lastly had come the bill. It was expected it would be £5000; actually it was only £4OOO, excluding the expenses incurred by the Government of India on the survey.

MARVELLOUS VEGETATION. Colonel Burry described the journey from Darjeeling to Sikkim. “Owing to its heavy rainfall,” he said, “Sikkim is a country with a lavish growth and a marvellous vegetation. The path that leads across to the Tibetan frontier is a very trying one. as it is a series of steep j climbs followed by equally steep de- ' scents into steaming tropical valleys. | Wonderful butterflies of every shade j and hue flitted across the path, scarlet I rhododendrons made brilliant patches of color in the dark green of the luxuriant forest among huge tree ferns. Creepers and ferns hung from every tree; white, orange, mauve, or purple orchids grew among the mosses and ferns on the branches of the trees, and showed up in lovely clumps of color. We passed big hedges of daturas on the way. 15ft. to 20ft. in height, and covered with hundreds of great white trumpet-shaped blooms, quite Biu. in diameter, and fully a foot in length. At night they gave out a strangely sweet scent, and seemed to gleam in the darkness with a curious kind of phosphorescence.” PRAYER WHEELS AND SPECIAL ■ TEA. Entering Tibet a visit was paid to the Donka Monastery, in the Chumbi Valley, which contained an enormous prayer wheel, containing over a million prayers. “Each time the wheel is turned,” the lecturer said, “a bell rings, and 1,000,000 prayers have ascended to Heaven. In other places we met prayer wheels, turned by water brought down in irrigation channels, and again in other parts the wind was used to do the same work, a kind of anemometer being fitted up to catch the wind. This latter was, perhaps, the most constant, as the wind blows both summer and winter in Tibet, whereas for six months in the year the water is frozen, and the water wheel is silent and can offer up no prayers. In the Donka Monastery was a famous oracle, a regular Delphic oracle, who was consulted far and wide, and his oracles had a great reputation for truth. Here we were given the usual Tibetan tea, poured out into agate and silver tea cups, and made with salt, tea, and butter, all churned up together.” DEATH OF DR. KELLAS.” Dr. Kellas was a member of the expedition who had been carrying out experiments with oxygen. He had not spared himself, climbing numbers of mountains of 20,000 ft. and less, and when he came to the latter part of the journey towards Mount Everest he was greatly exhausted. Stomach troubles broke out among the members of the expedition, owing to the change of climate and bad cooking. Dr. Kellas gradually grew worse, until on the last march before reaching Kam pa Dzong, while being carried in a litter over a 17,000 ft. pass, his heart failed him, and he passed away quietly. The following day he was buried at Kampa Dzong within sight of the three great mountains he had climbed in Sikkim, and in view of Mount Everest, which ne had so longed to approach. After Kainpa Dzong the route lay across broad plains and along the flat and swamp valley of the Yarn. “We forded the Yarn,” continued the lecturer, “and came to the fine country house of Gyanga Nangpa, which was the home of the Phari Jongpen. He rode out to meet us, and provided us with a very solid meal of soup and Tibetan dumplings with a chillie sauce. As we were given fifteen dumplings apiece, we found some difficulty in making room for these. Europeans had never been seen before in any of these parts since leaving Kampa Dzong, so everywhere we were objects of the greatest interest.

FLOWERS AT 2ff,OOOFT. . / “By September 20 we had all moved up to the 20,000 ft. camp, situated on the sunny terrace of stones between two glaciers. Even here a few flowers existed, and every night any food in my tent left unprotected was eaten by some mountain rats, though what they can find ordinarily to eat at these heights I cannot imagine. The nights here were cold, but the days delightfully warm, and the black bulb thermometer registered sun temperatures of 195 and 197 degrees Fahrenheit regularly. The sun at these great heights is one of the great foes that we have to contend with. It seems to exhaust and draw off all one’s vitality and leave us limp and good for no exertion. The whole climate is trying, and the extremes are sb great that your feet can be suffering from frost-bite while you are getting sunstroke at the same time. Or. September 22, six of us moved up to the Lhakpa La, a column 22,320 feel high, to which Mallory had been ousy carrying up stores; from here the only possible way up to Mount Everest could be seen clearly. It necessitates first a descent of 1200 feet on to a branch of the Rongbuk Valley, and then a steep climb up to the north column, a column that joined Mount Everest with the north peak, a peak some 24,600 feet in height. Mr. Mallory, with Mr. Bullock and Major Wheeler, went on next day and reached the column at a height of about 23,000 feet, but the fates were altogether against them, and though the weather remained bright and clear a north-west gale had already set in which made life even at the Lhakpa La camp very unpleasant, and conditions became absolutely impossible for any higher climbing. LEGEND OF THE SNOW MEN. “Tracks of hares, foxes, and wolves, were seen in the snow at great heights jip to 21,000 feet, and the track of what was probably a large loping grey wolf, which had tracks very like that of a bare-footed man, gave rise to the legend of the snow man which was well known to our coolies. Like in many other countries, they have in Tibet a Ifogey man with which to frighten their children when naughty, and this takes the form of a hairy man that lives in the snow, and when they want to escape from him they must run down-hill, aslong hair from his head falls over his eyes when he runs down-hill, and he is unable to see, and so they can escape from him. Many such stories they have, and these wolf tracks in the snow, which looked at first sight like human prints, were at once accepted by them as being the tracks of wild men. ' SMILING PASTURE LAND. *

“On August 2 Mallory and Bullock left Kharta to explore the eastern approach to Mount Everest. I followed the Alpine climbers a couple of days later. After going for seven miles up the Kharta Valley, which is very ferI tile, with every level space filled with | barley fields, and containing numerous • villages and monasteries, we turned up I a side valley and then crossed over a ; chain of mountains to the south, by the Langma La, a pass 18,000 ft. in height. This led us into the wonderful Kama Valley, a valley unexcelled in beauty anywhere in the Himalayas, with the mqst stupendous scenery, with gigantic, rocky cliffs towering up to Heaven, with immense cliffs of ice torn and riven, breaking off and failing with a thunderous roar far down into the valley below, with smiling pastures right amongst the ice and snow, with fields carpeted with many varieties of gentian and with rhododendrons, birch, and fir trees surrounding some of the lower glaciers, and with forests of some of the most magnificent fir trees in the lower parts of the valley; the whole forming a combination of beauty not often seen. At the extreme end of the valley towered up Mount Everest with its great butI tresses forming a huge semicircle, and like a great snake, the Kangsnung Glacier, with its bands of black moraine, crept up to the foot.of the rock walls and cliffs that formed the eastern side of Mount Everest. It did not need a long survey of these faces to satisfy the Alpine climbers that there was no practicable route up this side, but there was still an untried approach up the Kharta Valley, and to this valley they now turned their attention.” SCIENTIFIC RESULTS. The journey back was made up the valley of the Arun and Bhong Chu, as it is called in Tibet. Darjeeling was reached on October 25, and the expedition of 1921 was over. It had accomplished what it set out to do. All the approaches to Mount Everest from the N.. N.W., N.E., and E. had been carefully reconnoitred, and a possible route to the top had been found up the N.E. ridge, and it was only climatic conditions that prevented a much greater height being attained this year. The scientific results have not yet. been fully worked out, but in general outline, some 13,000 square miles of new country have been surveyed and mapped, part of this by the method of photographic survey and on a large scale. A large collection of birds and mammals of all sizes have been collected, the geology of the whole region has been carefully worked out by Dr. Heron, who is now compiling a geological map of the district, and a series of photographs have been taken of a country quite unknown and containing some of the grandest scenery in the world. Such briefly, have been the results of the first year’s expedition. CAN EVEREST BE CLIMBED?

Mr. G. Mallory reported, on the mountain reconnaissance. He concluded his record of the hardships which had to be encountered by asking: “Is it humanly possible to reach the summit of Mount Everest?” and he himself answered: “We have not a single convincing argument to solve that problem. I felt somehow when we „ reached the north col that the task was not impossible, but that may only have been a delusion based on the appearance of the mountain from that point. I am very far from a sanguine estimate as to the prospects of success. If men could be found to besiege Everest year after year I believe it woukl surrender at last. But the chances against any particular expedition are indeed very large. A party of two arriving at the top, each so tired that he is beyond helping the other, might provide good ‘copy,’ but the performance would provoke the censure of reasonable opinion. We have to consider sickness and exhausted coolies. Any reckoning, I believe, which fairly weighs the conditions and circumstances governing such an enterprise can only come to the conclusion that the chances in favor of success for any particular party are small indeed.” THE “FINAL ASSAULT.” From the photographs of the peak the remaining portion to be traversed seems to present few real difficulties. The first 2000 feet would be up an incline of 30 degrees, and the remainder up an incline of 20 degrees. Near the top there is something in the nature of a knoll with x&ther precipitous aides. As Sir Francis

Younghusband remarked , last evening, the hazard will primarily be in the condition of the snow along .tlje ridge. . If it is soft and powdery the Attempt will probably fail. If hard, and the climate conditions are favorable, the question would resolve itself into a matter of physical endurance at those high altitudes. Oxygen would be taken up to the 23,000 feet camping place, but this would only be used for restorative purposes. Coolies and the remainder of the party woukl all sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the two or three who were to make the final assault. The intention was to form a half-way camp about 3000 feet from the top, and the final assault and the return to camp would have to be done in a day. A NEW ANIMAL. Replying to a question after the lecture, Sir Francis divulged for the first time that the expedition had discovered a new specimen of animal —a whistling hare. The question of coolies had always been a difficult one, and it was decided to enlist a special corps of coolies, who were taken on for the period of the expedition, and clothed, fed, and paid well. The result had been very successful. The coolies who were to go to the top of the mountain next year would be equipped, clothed, hnd booted exactly the same as members of the expedition. General Bruce, who wool 1 be in charge was, however, a very cunning man, and he would see that the coolies did not get their equipment until they reached Tibet. Answering a question as to whether the local people resented the intrusion of members of the expedition as-foreign devils, Sir Francis said that the camera had gone a long way towards fostering friendly relations. Men, women, and children had come out to have, their photographs taken, and were immensely pleased with the prints which were presented to them. A holy, abbot, held in veneration, had stood -for his photograph, and dozens of- copies were printed and distributed among the people. This had a wonderful effect, and no unfriendliness had been shown. “What about the mules?” asked someone. “Mules is a word we do not mention now,” replied Sir Francis, amid laughter. “In future we are depending wholly upon human carriers.” Everest, be. added, from a climbing point of view, was about the easiest in the Himalayas. Its height had hitherto been reckoned as 29,002 ft, but the latest computations gave its height as 29,141 ft., and was nearer the mark.