I would like to place on record here that, whatever small measure of success Geoffrey Bruce, Tejbir and I eventually achieved, was almost entirely due to the loyal and gallant efforts with which these splendid little men backed us up on every possible occasion. No praise can be too great for the exemplary and cheerful devotion they displayed towards us throughout. These porters came for the most part from Nepal, the native state lying to the south of Mount Everest. Being of Mongolian extraction, they have beardless faces. One of the greatest honours that one can confer upon them is to call them by some endearing nickname. One I called “Josephine-Anne-Marie,” another “Dorothy” and yet another “Trudi”[16]; this last being suggested by his proper name, Tergio. Several of these men, Trudi and Dorothy among them, accomplished the extraordinary feat of climbing on three separate occasions to the tremendous altitude of 25,500 feet.

On May 16, we left the Base for Camp I. Wakefield was accompanying us as far as Camp III, in order to give us a clean bill of health from there onwards. The way up to this camp was wholly delightful, and led for the most part over the tremendous moraines flanking the right bank of the Rongbuk Glacier. Everest was always before us, and the nearer we approached the entrance of the East Rongbuk Valley, the more was our view extended over the mountains to the west, nearly all of which are far more satisfying to the eye than Mount Everest. The day was fine. The only clouds were of the peculiar type, with sharp-cut edges, which I had learnt to associate with more or less settled weather in this part of the world. Camp I was pitched just inside the entrance to the East Rongbuk Valley and quite close to the East Rongbuk Glacier. The following day was spent in attending to matters of equipment and also in ski-ing in the snow-filled bed of the East Rongbuk stream just below the camp. The porters were intensely keen on this amusement and, in spite of numerous tosses, were the aptest of pupils.

Thanks to the careful reconnaissance carried out by Strutt’s party, the way towards Camp II was a simple matter. For the most part we marched up over the stone-strewn surface of the East Rongbuk Glacier. Here and there the glacier was much broken up, but, by keeping to the moraines running down it, good headway was made. The views towards the peaks in that great chain which runs down from the North Peak towards the Base Camp were most striking. Point 22,580, in particular, is a most graceful mountain with a delightfully cornice-crested, aspiring summit. Clouds obscured Mount Everest, but for one brief spell they parted, and we saw, peeping down at us, the lofty summit, now looking far higher than it ever had before. Shortly before reaching Camp II, direct progress was barred by an enormous ice wall. The obstacle, however, was easily turned, and soon afterwards we arrived in camp.

The tents were pitched on a layer of stones lying upon the glacier, at an altitude of about 19,500 feet above sea-level. It was well sheltered from the wind, but unfortunately received very little sun; a great disadvantage, because life in the shade was hardly bearable outside one’s sleeping-bag. A large, frozen-over pond of glacier water lay within a few yards of the camp, and beyond it, within easy reach, were some magnificent ice slopes. The sight of these gave me the idea that it would be a good plan to give Geoffrey Bruce, Tejbir and those of the porters, whom we had selected to join our party, their first lessons in the proper use of the ice-axe and climbing irons. A suitable slope was soon found. At its foot lay the frozen-over pool. In a very short time my enthusiastic pupils were hard at it, and within half an hour many of them were so good that one might have thought they had been used to this sort of work all their lives. Tejbir, however, on one occasion chose to rely too much on his sure-footedness, with the result that he slipped, slithered down the slope, broke through the frozen surface of the water and got thoroughly ducked. With the instincts of the born mountaineer, he retained a grasp upon his ice-axe. We hauled him out at once, but as the external air temperature was well below zero, Tejbir soon discovered that he was encased in armour plate. We hustled him over to the camp and stripped him of his frozen clothing; and for the next two hours all that was to be seen of Tejbir was a broad grin surrounded by many blankets as he sat under shelter and thought things over. The problem of drying his clothes, though it was far too cold for the ice in them to melt, was quite a simple affair. At this great altitude, the air is so dry and so rarefied that ice evaporates at least as readily as water does at sea-level on a fine summer’s day—a phenomenon to which may be attributed the diminutive size of the mountain streams draining the extensive glaciers in this region of the earth. These streams are almost entirely supplied by water caused by the friction of the glaciers flowing over their rocky beds. Surface water due to melting of surface ice, the main source of supply of glacier streams in the Alps, does not exist on the northern slopes of Everest at this time of the year. Thus to dry Tejbir’s frozen garments one had only to apply a little logic and scientific training. Take, for instance, his trousers. These were first of all hammered out flat and then placed in a vertical position against a little wall of stones. The moment they collapsed and fell to the ground, it was obvious that their stiffening of ice had disappeared and they were, therefore, dry. Who, after this brilliant example, would gainsay the uses of science?

“A suitable slope was soon found.”

Facing page 302.

The original intention had been to give my party at least one day’s rest at Camp II, with the object of assisting, as far as possible, the important process of acclimatisation. But on our march up to the camp, everyone had felt so remarkably fit, and I myself had walked so freely and easily, that, as Camp II was by no means too comfortable, we thought it better to make for Camp III. At 8 a.m., therefore, on May 19 we set off. At first, by keeping to the moraine, we were able to avoid having to seek a way through the broken up ice of the glacier. But all too soon the stones came to an end, and we had to take to the icefall. First appearances suggested the possibility of heavy step-cutting, but, as a matter of fact, things turned out extraordinarily well, and it was only very occasionally that we had to ply the axe. Here and there a frozen-over pool of water lying at the foot of some crevasse had to be circumvented. Although the ice was in most cases thick, it could not be relied upon to bear one’s weight, as the water underneath had often ebbed away and was no longer in contact with the ice. A ducking could not be risked now; we were so far away from the comforts of a camp that the consequences might have proved more than unpleasant. It was sheer joy, this climbing up and down or walking along the troughs of crevasses, circumventing and occasionally scaling huge séracs of fantastic shapes and showing the most wonderful range of colours from clear, deep blue, through green to a pure, opaque white which in turn merged into a crystal-clear transparency. Unlike the séracs of European glaciers, there was nothing to be feared from these great giants. Séracs in Switzerland are formed by the flow of glaciers over some marked step or irregularity in their beds; but here, north of Mount Everest, other causes seemed to be at work. Perhaps side pressure caused by tributary glaciers flowing into the main glacier, perhaps wind currents and evaporation of ice are the deciding factors. In any case, the séracs of the East Rongbuk Glacier stood proudly upon firm, wide bases and showed no rottenness or decay to menace those marching amongst them. Eventually we emerged from the broken up part of the glacier and found ourselves on the still snow-free but almost uncrevassed, gently-rising upper portion, over which progress developed into little more than a rather wearisome trudge. The North Peak was now to be seen at its best—a bold, heavily-built Colossus, above the eastern ridge of which appeared the summit of Everest. The mountains to the east were not attractive. We were now so close to them that it was evident that they are for the most part little more than glorified scree slopes rising from uninteresting-looking glaciers. The heat on this part of the day’s march was considerable. There was little or no wind, but, contrary to the experiences related by many Himalayan explorers, few of us were overcome by that form of heat lassitude usually associated with such weather conditions in these high altitudes. Indeed, most of us, including the porters, who carried loads averaging some forty pounds each, plodded along at a good, steady pace, which was certainly no slower than it would have been in the Alps, say, on the Aletsch Glacier at noon under a summer sun. It may, perhaps, be worthy of mention that since leaving the Base Camp, perspiration had been unknown to us. No matter how hot the sun, how still the air, or how great the exertion, any perspiration exuded by the skin was, owing to the dryness and the reduced pressure of the atmosphere, evaporated before one became aware of its presence.