We were divided from this fairy world of spires by a deep boundary moat and entered it on the far side by what may be described as a door but that it had no lintel. An alley led us over a low wall and we had reached the interior. A connected narrative of our wanderings in this amazing country could hardly be true to its disconnected character. The White Rabbit himself would have been bewildered here. No course seemed to lead anywhere. Our idea was to keep to the floor so far as we were able; but most usually we were scrambling up a chimney or slithering down one, cutting round the foot of a tower or actually traversing along an icy crest. To be repeatedly crossing little cols with the continued expectation of seeing a way beyond was a sufficiently exciting labour; it was also sufficiently laborious since the chopping of steps was necessary almost everywhere; but fatigue was out of sight in the enchanted scene, with the cool delight of little lakes, of the ice reflected in their unruffled waters and of blue sky showing between the white spires. We had but one misadventure, and that of no consequence—it was my fate when crossing the frozen surface of one little lake to suffer a sudden immersion: the loss of dignity perhaps was more serious than the chilling of ardour, for we soon came upon a broadening alley and came out from our labyrinth as suddenly as we entered it, to lie and bask in the warm sun.
Our crossing of the white ice after all had taken little more than two hours, and we might well consider ourselves fortunate. But it must be remembered that we were far from fresh at the start and now the reaction set in. The stone-covered glacier on this side, besides being a much narrower belt was clearly not going to give us trouble, and after an ample halt we started across it easily enough. On the right bank we had noticed many hours before above the glacier a broad flat shelf, presumably an old moraine, and a clear mark along the hillside away down to a point below the snout. This was now our objective and no doubt once we had gained it our troubles would be ended. But in the first place it had to be gained. In the Alps it has often seemed laborious to go up hill towards the end of a day: it was a new sensation to find it an almost impossible exertion to drag oneself up a matter of 150 feet. And further exertions were to be required of us. A little way down the valley a glacier stream came in on our right; we had observed this before and hopefully expected to follow our terrace round and rejoin it on the far side of the gully. But it was late in the afternoon and the stream was at its fullest. We followed it down with defeated expectations; it always proved just too dangerous to cross. Finally it formed a lake at the edge of the glacier before disappearing beneath it and obliged us to make a detour on the ice once more. I suppose this obstacle was mild enough; but again an ascent was involved, and after it at least one member of the party seemed incapable of further effort. Another halt was necessary. We were now down to about 17,000 feet and at the head of a long passage at the side of the glacier, similar to that we had ascended in the morning on the other bank. Those who suffer from altitude on a mountain have a right to expect a recovery on the descent. But I saw no signs of one yet. It was a long painful hour balancing from boulder to boulder along the passage, with the conscious effort of keeping up the feat until we came out into the flat basin at the glacier end. Then as we left the glacier behind us the day seemed to come right. One obstacle remained, a stream which had been crossed with difficulty in the morning and was now swollen to a formidable torrent. It was carried with a rush—this was no moment for delay. Each man chose his own way for a wetting; for my part, after a series of exciting leaps on to submerged stones I landed in the deepest part of the stream with the pick of my axe dug into the far bank to help me scramble out. After this I remember only of the last 4 miles the keen race against the gathering darkness; fatigue was forgotten and we reached camp at 8.15 p.m., tired perhaps, but not exhausted.
It has seemed necessary to give an account of this first expedition in some detail in order to emphasise certain conditions which governed all our movements from the Rongbuk Valley. We now knew how to get about. Flat though the glacier might be, it was no use for travelling in any part we had seen, not a road but an obstacle. The obstacle, however, had not proved insurmountable, and though the crossing had been laborious and long, we were not convinced that it need be so long another time; careful reconnaissance might reveal a better way, and we had little doubt that both the main glacier and its Western branch could be used freely for lateral communication if we chose. It would not always be necessary in organising an expedition to be encamped on one side of the glacier rather than the other. And we had discovered that it was not a difficult matter to make our way along the glacier sides; we could choose either a trough or a shelf.
We had also been greatly interested by the phenomena of fatigue. The most surprising fact when we applied our standard of comparison was that coming down had proved so laborious; Bullock and I had each discovered independently that we got along better when we remembered to breathe hard, and we already suspected what we afterwards established—that it was necessary to adopt a conscious method of breathing deeply for coming down as for going up. Another inference, subsequently confirmed on many occasions, accused the glacier. The mid-day sun had been hot as we crossed it and I seemed to notice some enervating influence which had not affected me elsewhere. It was the glacier that had knocked me out, not the hard work alone but some malignant quality in the atmosphere, which I can neither describe nor explain; and in crossing a glacier during the day I always afterwards observed the same effect; I might feel as fit and fresh as I could wish on the moraine at the side but only once succeeded in crossing a glacier without feeling a despairing lassitude.
I shall now proceed to quote from my diary:
June 28.—A slack day in camp. It is difficult to induce coolies to take any steps to make themselves more comfortable. We're lucky to have this fine weather. The mountain appears not to be intended for climbing. I've no inclination to think about it in steps to the summit. Nevertheless, we gaze much through field-glasses. E. is, generally speaking, convex, steep in lower parts and slanting back to summit. Last section of East arête[4] should go; but rocks up to the shoulder are uninviting. An arête must join up here, coming down towards us and connecting up with first peak to N.[5] There's no true North arête to the summit, as we had supposed at first. It's more like this:
G. H. B. thinks little of the North-west arm. But I'm not so sure; much easy going on that snow if we can get to it and rocks above probably easier than they look—steep but broken. Are we seeing the true edge? I wish some folk at home could see the precipice on this side—a grim spectacle most unlike the long gentle snow slopes suggested by photos. Amusing to think how one's vision of the last effort has changed; it looked like crawling half-blind up easy snow, an even slope all the way up from a camp on a flat snow shoulder; but it won't be that sort of grind; we'll want climbers and not half-dazed ones; a tougher job than I bargained for, sanguine as usual.
E. is a rock mountain.