However, by night we were all comfortably settled down, although the whole of our advance stores did not arrive until after ten o’clock at night again. Unfortunately, three of our porters who had stayed behind with the slowest of the bullocks lost their way after dark. They stayed out the whole night without bedding or covering, and in the morning continued to the nunnery of Tatsang, which was about 4 or 5 miles further down the valley and rather off our direct route. We here heard of them and retrieved them. These men had not yet been issued with their full clothes, and how they managed to sit out the night clothed as they were and without any damage of any kind passes one’s comprehension. So low was the temperature that night that the quickly flowing stream outside our camp was frozen solid.
We halted the next day, as the transport was overdone, and the following day (April 11) made another long, but very interesting, march direct to Khamba Dzong, leaving the monastery of Tatsang on our right and crossing high plains on which were grazing large herds of kyang and gazelle. The mounted men had great fun trying to round up and get as close as possible to the herds of kyang; they were trusting up to a point, but never let us go close enough to get a good snap photograph of them. Finally, the road led from the high plateau down to Khamba Dzong, through what to several of us immediately became astonishingly familiar country; for the whole surroundings of the Khamba Dzong Valley reminds one very much of the scenery on the North-west frontier of India. But what a difference in climate!
We camped at Khamba Dzong where last year’s Expedition had camped, and were very well received by the same Dzongpen. We were gratified to find Dr. Kellas’ grave in good order, and we further added to it a collection of great stones. The inscription on the grave in English and Tibetan was clear and clean. We were delayed in Khamba Dzong for three whole days, partly because of the difficulty in collecting animals; also two days to allow our main convoy of 200 yaks to catch us up, and we had the good luck to be joined by Finch and Crawford, who had pushed on at a great pace with the oxygen apparatus. They showed evident signs of wear and tear, being badly knocked about by the weather. The storm had caught them on the Jelep La, and as this is more South, there had been a very much greater fall of snow, so much so that the Chumbi Valley was inches deep in it. They spoke very highly indeed of all their followers, cooks and Tibetans, and especially of a capital boy, Lhakpa Tsering, who had come along with them as their special attendant. He was quite a young boy, but had made the march in two days with them to Tatsang, where they stayed for the night, without showing any particular signs of fatigue, running along beside their ponies. I make a considerable point of the following: I think great exertions and long marches at these high altitudes before acclimatisation is complete would have tended to exhaust, and not to improve, the training of the party, whereas to have a pony with one and be able to walk or ride when one felt tired or blown, gradually allowed the body to adjust itself. At any rate, I am perfectly certain that if every one had been obliged to walk instead of being able to ride, even on the terribly inadequate ponies that were supplied to them in Tibet, but which, at any rate, gave them the much-needed rest, they would not have arrived at the Rongbuk Glacier fit to do the work which they afterwards successfully tackled.
Our march from Khamba Dzong to Tinki and from Tinki to Shekar was exactly by the route followed by Colonel Howard-Bury in the previous year, and calls for no particular comment on my part, with the exception that two small parties of Finch and Wakefield and Mallory and Somervell made a good attempt at Gyangka-nangpa to climb a 20,000-foot peak, Sangkar Ri, on the way. This they were not quite able to do.
We had no difficulty in crossing the great sand-dunes where the Yaru River joins the Arun, as we were able to cross it in the early morning before the wind had arisen. But on that morning, when we came to the junction of the valley of the Arun, we had a most wonderful and clear view of Mount Everest to the South. Although it was over 50 miles distant in a straight line, it did not look more than twenty. The whole of the face that was visible to us was smothered in snow. The entire setting of the piece was very strange; the country was almost bare enough to remind one of a crumpled Egyptian desert, and the strangeness and wonder was hugely increased by the South of the valley being filled with this wonderful mountain mass.
At Shekar, where we arrived on April 24, we were again delayed for three days getting transport. We found the Dzong filled with Lamas. There is a great monastery in Shekar itself, and one of less account a little further beyond. The great Lama of Shekar is an extremely cunning old person and a first-class trader. In his quarters at the monastery he had immense collections of Tibetan and Chinese curios, and he knew the price of these as well as any professional dealer. We saw a great deal, in fact, a great deal too much, of the Lamas of Shekar. They were the most inconceivably dirty crowd that we had met in Tibet; the dirt was quite indescribable. Although the people in Lhasa in good positions are reported to be generally cleanish, here in the more out-of-the-way parts of Tibet washing appears to be entirely unknown, except to the Dzongpens, and I believe that the ordinary Dzongpen only has a ceremonial bath on New Year’s Eve as a preparatory to the new year, and I should not be at all surprised if Mrs. Dzongpen did too. At any rate, the Dzongpens’ families were always infinitely better cared for in this respect than anyone else. These people, however, have the most terribly dirty cooks it is possible for the human imagination to conceive. For this reason I never was very happy as a guest, and although the food provided for one’s entertainment was often quite pleasant to eat, it was absolutely necessary not to allow one’s imagination to get to work.
The three days’ delay at Shekar was greatly due to the movement of officials and troops marching by the same route from Tingri to Shigatse, and as they had commissioned every available animal, they interfered considerably with our movements. Shekar was not comfortable during these days; the wind was not continuous, but came in tremendous gusts, and dust-devils were continually tearing through the camp and upsetting everything. Shekar, as Colonel Howard-Bury has described it, is wonderfully situated. The pointed mass of rock rises direct from the plains, and the white monasteries and white town are built on its sides. The illustration will describe it much better than I can. Shekar means “Shining glass.” All the towns and houses on the sides of the mountain are brilliantly white and show up very clearly against the dark browns and reds of the hillside. It is no doubt this appearance which gives it its name.
The Dzongpen at Shekar was a most important official. The whole of the country South of Shekar and the Rongbuk Valley where we were going were in his jurisdiction. We hoped that if we could only gain his own goodwill as well as his official goodwill, it would be of very great advantage to us. We entertained each other freely, and he was very pleased with the lengths of kin kob[[2]] which I gave to himself and his wife, and also with the photographs of the Dalai and Tashi Lamas which I gave to him. By showing him pictures and taking his own picture, we were able to make great friends with him, to our great advantage. He sent with us his agent, Chongay La, who served us well during the whole of our time in the Rongbuk Glacier; in fact, without him we should have had great difficulty in obtaining the large amount of stores, grain, and Tibetan coolies which were necessary for us in order to keep our very large party properly provisioned when we were high up on the mountain-side.
[2]. Brocade.
Among our other presents was the inevitable Homburg hat. Wherever we went we presented a Homburg hat. I had provided myself with a large number of these hats from Whiteaway and Laidlaw before leaving Darjeeling. These were a cheap present, but very much valued. Any high man of a village known as a Gembo La would do anything for a Homburg hat; it was ceremoniously placed on his head and was invariably well received. In fact, all recipients visibly preened themselves for some time afterwards.