CHAPTER VII
At the village of Chongur in Nepal I was able to purchase some extra blankets and shoes for my men, as from this point we should soon come among the snows, where we should remain for some time. Up to an altitude of 11,000 feet we travelled among firs, and on very sharp, slippery slopes without a trail. On a bit of level pasture-land we came across two Jumli annuals or shepherds with some sheep. They were curious types, wild and unkempt, with shaggy hair flowing upon their face and shoulders. I do not think that I have ever seen men more abruti—to use a French expression which fits them perfectly—than those two. Shivering from cold, ill-clad, living on roots and whatever they could pick up, which was not much, they were indeed the very picture of misery and wretchedness. When they had recovered from their fright at our approach, I gave them some food which would last [[63]]them some time, and their gratitude knew no bounds.
Farther on we met a Nepalese woman carrying a child slung in a basket upon her back, while the husband walked peacefully behind. When the camera was pointed at the couple they were so disturbed that the woman dropped basket and child and took to her heels down a most precipitous slope, while her better half ran away from us, also full speed, but on a less dangerous route.
Farther on, as we got higher up, we encountered more shepherds, in as pitiable a condition as the first we had seen, having nearly lost their power of speech through leading a lonely life among these mountains. They all suffered from fever and rheumatism; some from goitre through drinking snow water.
The marching was very heavy, especially for my men who carried loads; my pony, of course, had to be abandoned long before this, and I had sent him down to lower elevations in charge of my sayce.
We were now nearing the magnificent Api Mountain, and we soon came to the moraine of the glacier. We reached the glacier—which I named the Elfrida Landor Glacier—at sunset, and it was indeed a most beautiful sight with its huge walls [[64]]of clear ice in irregular terraces, portions only being in broken-up heaps. At the sides, mud of a greyish colour and broken ice bordered the worn, eroded rock down to the level of the valley where the glacier lies.
The glacier lies from N.E.E. to S.W.W., with two high peaks, one to the N.N.W., the other to the S.S.E., the latter being known as the Api Mountain. Two snow-fed streams descend from the glacier, and, joining into a rapid torrent, become a tributary of the Lumpa River. The natives call all these glaciers by the generic term Sho-gal, or “snow glacier.”
Elfrida Landor Glacier, Nepal
The village of Chongur could be distinguished in the far distance to the N.W. of us, down, down below in the valley of the Kali; and to the N.N.W. we obtained a panoramic view of the Kuti River valley, with the conical Bitroegoar Mountain and a high peak to the N.N.E. Even below 13,000 feet the vegetation had become very sparse, but patches of short grass were found up to 16,000 feet. Above that all was absolutely barren, and generally covered with snow. In the high valley we had followed, whatever trees we found were weather-beaten and half-burnt by the snow and cold winds of the winter months. For long distances we occasionally [[65]]walked on thick beds of wild strawberries. These high valleys are considered good pasture-land by the Shokas, who send their sheep for grazing in charge of annuals, such as those we had met.
The foot of the glacier where we pitched our tent was at an elevation of 13,900 feet, and the temperature shortly before sunset not higher than 33° Fahrenheit.
Perhaps to those who have never slept on the ice of a glacier it may be interesting to know what it feels like. Barring a certain chilliness which anybody can imagine, a first night on a glacier has many surprises. I say “first night,” because we spent a great many, and we got accustomed to the weird noises which kept us awake and in some suspense on the first visit. Indeed, a Himahlyan glacier seems to be the home of noises of all kinds. The wind blowing among the pinnacles and recesses produces weird melodies like solos and immense choruses of human voices; you can hear shrill whistling all round you when sharper blades of ice cut the current of air, and roars like those of wild beasts, only stronger, when the wind penetrates into some deep cavity. No sooner were you closing your eyes again for a much-wanted sleep than thunder, so loud that it made you jump, startled [[66]]you, but when you peeped out of the tent there were brilliant stars and a limpid sky everywhere above you. Sleepy as you were, you could not resist—at least, I could not, and I am not much of a star-gazer—the temptation to gaze at the stars and planets. In the rarefied and limpid air they showed like huge diamonds, and gave quite enough light to see all round one, even when there was no moon. Indeed, no one who has never been to exceptionally high elevations has an idea of the beauty of stars. They appear several times larger than they do when seen from London or Paris, for instance, and the magnificence of their ever-changing colours is indescribable.
Well, there was poetry enough in that, but you were soon awakened from your contemplation by some unexpected explosion which made you think the whole landscape before you must have been blown up. But no, there were no visible signs of commotion around. It was merely a new crevasse, some hundreds of feet deep, splitting, for some reason, climatic or other, in the ice. Constant rumblings you heard, near and distant; and you only had to close your eyes and you could imagine yourself in a forest with the wind rustling among the trees, or the pleasant sound of a waterfall close [[67]]by, or an æolian harp being played by a divine hand.
Echoes, of course, there are by the dozen on mountains, and each sound is repeated over and over again till it fades away. An occasional boulder gets loose from the rotted rock up on the mountain side, and is precipitated with bounding leaps on to the ice of the glacier; a huge one weighing some tons came down that night and missed our tent by not very many yards. My men said the spirits of the mountains were doing all this for our special benefit, to see whether we were brave or not! The big boulder they had flung at and purposely missed us to show us their powers, but not to hurt us. This was a good sign. “The gods are with us,” they stated; but internally I heartily prayed that we might have no more “good signs” of that nature.
While I was trying to make some hot chocolate with a small spirit-stove, my men were busy packing up, they bearing the discomfort with some considerable pluck. We had not been able to make a fire, and we had not the prospect of seeing many for some weeks to come. I always found chocolate the most useful and sustaining food for mountaineering purposes, and I carried any number [[68]]of tablets in my pockets. On the march I constantly ate it; food, I found, keeping one’s strength up and being more easily digested under those circumstances, if spread in small quantities over the entire day, than if eaten in large quantities twice or three times a day at given hours. I had my chocolate specially prepared with a percentage of meat and fat, which gave it additional nourishment. For days and days at a time I lived on chocolate only, it being impossible to cook food, and deeming it rather dangerous to eat tinned meats cold.
Funnels in the Moraine Ice
I was able to overcome the caste scruples of my men, and they, too, partook freely of my chocolate, although I never let them know that it contained beef. Had they known this, most of them would have lost their caste. They ate it because they believed it entirely prepared by machinery and not touched by unclean hands!
I was sorry when we struck camp and left behind the beautiful glacier and Api Mt., 19,919 feet. We soon rose over a pass (13,050 feet) where we obtained a view of a second glacier, almost as fine as the first, in precipitous terraces, and with a gigantic terminal moraine, covered in great part by débris and rotten rock, fallen from [[69]]the mountain at the side. This I called the Armida Glacier. It spread in a direction from N.E. to S.W. To the west of the glacier on the mountain side there was hardly any snow up to 16,000 feet, but to the east, as one looked towards it, there were huge masses.
The entire valley of the Lumpa river along which we were travelling made part of a gigantic glacier, with side glaciers such as those we have seen. In the lower portion of the valley the ice was covered with débris.
At the foot of the Armida Glacier were some immense parallel crevasses in the ice. The upper portion of these was a mixture of dark grey mud and rock embedded in the ice, showing vertical streaks and corrugations. Then there were some curious pits in the moraine, such as the one shown in the illustration, funnel-shaped and of great depth, some 60 feet deep and more, and about 100 feet in diameter. These funnels, cone-shaped, had a great fascination—quite an irresistible attraction—when one looked into them. The ice, of a beautiful light green colour, was corrugated into grooves converging towards the centre at the bottom, where a deep hole was generally to be found. The ridges of the myriads of grooves [[70]]reflected in a line of silver the rays of the sun, and these many dazzling luminous streaks all converging towards one point had quite an hypnotic effect on some of my more highly strung men. One man became quite giddy in looking down, and very nearly went over, and several other men experienced a strong desire to precipitate themselves into these pits.
The Armida Landor Glacier, Nepal
I puzzled my head a great deal to find out exactly how these funnels were produced, and the only plausible explanation seemed that some boulder fallen from the mountain side had, owing to its sun-absorbed high temperature, gradually bored a hole into the ice. The walls of the cylindrical hole, becoming in their turn exposed to the strong sunlight, went through a process of melting, the heat affecting the upper portion to a much greater extent than farther down, where the strength of the sun’s rays would be mitigated by the influence on the temperature of the air by the surrounding ice. Thus the quicker melting of the upper portion compared with the lower would at once have a tendency to produce the conical shape of the funnels.
Then, of course, the grooves in the ice are produced by the water of the melting surface ice [[71]]flowing down. In fact, in the daytime, the lower centre hole, which had vertical walls, was almost invariably filled with water.
Perhaps, to avoid the absurd criticisms of fault-discovering critics (which criticisms arise merely from their own appalling and fantastic ignorance), it may be as well to remind the reader that the sun’s rays, even at very great elevations and among quantities of snow and ice, can be very powerful—85°, 90°, and even more. This particularly if the region in which one is travelling is, as was that where we were, in a latitude north of 30° 4′ 0″ only from the Equator. Naturally, the drop in the temperature when the sun disappears is enormous, from 60° to 100° being nothing very exceptional. This also applies in a lesser degree between the sun and shade in the daytime. When marching, for instance, due north or south in those regions, it is not unusual to have one’s anatomy roasting on the side where it is struck by the sun, and to be half-frozen on the other side.
We continued our journey upon the moraine of the main glacier, avoiding as much as we could the dangerous cracks and treacherous holes. Half-way up the main glacier we were at an altitude of 13,600 feet. On descending some 400 feet we [[72]]came to a plain wherein grew rhubarb and some turnips, the former wild, the latter planted by Nepalese shepherds. There were, in fact, three tiny shelters of stones and mud where the poor wretches had lived. We were much rejoiced at finding some shrubs we could use as fuel. The glacier we were leaving behind was separated from this valley by a high dune of mud and débris.
After crossing a stream we came to a third, the Martia Glacier, some 15,500 feet above sea-level. This glacier was not quite so impressive as the other two, but it was, nevertheless, a most beautiful basin filled with masses of clear ice in irregular terraces. A great moraine extended here across the valley from the glacier, forming a ridge which we had to climb in order to proceed on our journey. There seemed to be traces of iron in the débris of the moraine as well as in the rocks of the mountains around, and upon the gigantic boulders which had been shot down upon the ice.
On the opposite side of the Lumpa stream to the one on which we stood, just before reaching the third glacier, were high vertical rocks of brilliant colouring. To the south-east of the glacier at the foot was the usual dune, and we again found a great many gigantic pits, all with water at the bottom. [[73]]
We came to a very dangerous crevasse which we could not cross, and we had to make a considerable detour. The edge on which we had got seemed on the point of giving way, and might have collapsed at any moment. Where the surface ice was covered by débris it showed graceful undulations and well-rounded mounds, but occasionally there were higher hillocks of conical shape and quite pointed.
Still travelling upon the moraine of the Lumpa Glacier we arrived at last at the spot where the Lumpa river has its birth, dripping gently from the glacier. Here, too, the ice with the overlying débris showed in its general lines the peculiar sweeping curves noticeable in all these glaciers, the section to the east being, in this particular glacier, an exception to the rule, and exhibiting a disorderly mass of débris and huge blocks of ice.
We had reached a point where a bifurcation occurred, one arm of the glacier extending to 160° bearings magnetic (S.S.E.), the other and principal one to 120° bearings magnetic, towards the Lumpa Mountain.
We selected this spot to make our camp, and a very cold camp it was, too. We pitched our tent alongside a big rock, and with fuel we had brought [[74]]up, tried, after sundown, to make a fire inside the tent in order to keep ourselves warm. But we were nearly suffocated by the smoke. During the night, while my men were asleep—and the fire gone out—I changed the plates in three magazine cameras, forty-eight plates altogether; a job which with semi-frozen and trembling fingers, and careful packing of negatives already exposed, took me the best part of two hours. Indeed, one of the great tortures of exploration in cold climates, is the immense care with which one must nurse one’s surveying and other instruments under most adverse circumstances, and the inexpressible trouble which photography, if done seriously, involves. For similar kind of work I always found plates infinitely more reliable than films; but, of course, with them the use of a red lantern becomes imperative, and often leads to the use of a good deal of bad language. If you adopt an oil-lantern the oil gets frozen into a solid mass, and it is somewhat troublesome to keep the lantern burning, whereas candles have other disadvantages. As for feeling the film side with your fingers, and changing plates in the dark, it is, of course, out of the question when your hands are too cold.
Author’s Camp, Nepal
Maybe another hint when mountaineering at [[75]]great altitudes will be useful to you. Never use a waterproof sleeping-bag, such as those you see advertised and recommended, as the very thing you want on a mountain. If you do, and the night is a cold one, you will find yourself and your blankets soaked in condensed moisture from the heat of your body coming in contact with the cold waterproof sheet, through which it is unable to escape. Of course it is wise to use a waterproof sheet to lie on under one’s blankets.
On that particular night, feeling extra cold and not thinking of consequences, I wrapped myself up, over my blankets, in a waterproof. The results were disastrous. Everything got drenched, and, when I got up, blankets and clothes became solid sheets of ice! [[76]]