The route we were following soon turned away to the left, leaving the Diamirai nullah on the right. It was afterwards that we found out the reason for this. It seems to be impossible to descend or ascend this portion of the Diamirai nullah direct. The valley narrows in below the bottom of the glacier, and finally becomes a deep gorge with cliffs thousands of feet high on either side. Our change in direction soon showed us that we should have to cross the tributary Lubar nullah. This meant that we had to climb down a very steep rocky face of about 3000 feet. At about four in the afternoon we arrived at the bottom, finding an impassable glacier torrent thundering over great boulders and swollen by the melted snows of the morning. Walls of rock barred our way either up or down the stream, but Lor Khan said we were at the ford. In vain we tried to place pine trunks across—they were swept away one by one. It was a fine sight to see Lor Khan, stripped to the waist, struggling in the icy water with the great pine stems, a magnificent specimen of fearlessness, muscle, and activity. Fortunately we had insisted on roping him, for once he was carried off his feet and had to be brought back to land half drowned but laughing. It soon became perfectly evident that we could not cross till early next morning, when the frost on the glaciers above would have frozen up the sources of this turbulent stream. As we were wondering where we could possibly find room to lie down for the night, high above us on the opposite bank a stone came bounding down a precipitous gully. Who had started it? Some goat or other wild animal; or was it our cook returning with provisions? Shouting was useless, for the roar of the torrent drowned every noise. Five minutes passed, then ten, finally a quarter of an hour, but we were not destined to be disappointed; at last, more than five hundred feet up the gully opposite, we saw our cook with all the coolies.
After they had descended, a rope was thrown across to them, and we succeeded by its aid in hauling a slippery pine trunk into position behind two large stones. Over this we crossed and camped on a narrow spit of level ground underneath the perpendicular walls of rock: chickens, sugar, eggs, three maunds of flour, and four sheep were amongst the spoils brought up by our cook from Bunar. That evening we ate our meal by the ruddy light of a great camp fire, with the roar of the torrent making it almost impossible to hear our voices, and underneath some gnarled and stunted pines, whose roots were firmly imbedded in the great fissures that ran up the perpendicular rock face. As the question of provisions had been settled for some time, we returned much relieved in our minds to the Diamirai nullah.
The next day, August 14th, it again rained hard nearly all day. At 2 A.M. on the 15th we started once more for the upper camp. We took with us Ragobir, Lor Khan, and a Chilasi coolie, whom I had called Richard the Third, from his likeness to the usual portraits of that monarch. More firewood and provisions and a silk tent were taken up to this camp at the head of the glacier. Two rucksacks had already been left high up on the rocks on the 9th. It was now Mummery's intention to take some more odds and ends up to where they were, and if possible push on with about a third of the provisions to about 20,000 feet, and leave them there for the final attempt. This necessitated sleeping on the top of the second rib of rocks. By the time I had arrived at the upper camp underneath Nanga Parbat I began to develop a headache, and, being otherwise ill as well, I had reluctantly to give up any idea of climbing further. Mummery, Ragobir, and Lor Khan went on, whilst I spent most of the morning watching them climb like flies up the almost perpendicular rib of rocks above me.
Nanga Parbat from the Diamirai Glacier.
But I had to get home that night, and also get the coolie home as well. This was no easy matter, for there were some steep ice slopes, with steps cut in them, and crevasses at the bottom, which so frightened poor Richard the Third, that for a long time I could not induce him even to try. In fact, ultimately I had to threaten him violently with my ice-axe. Whether he thought that it was a choice of death by cold steel above, or cold ice below in the crevasse, I don't know, but he chose the latter, and was much surprised to find that he was not going to be sacrificed after all. Then, before we got home it began to rain heavily, the mists came down, everything becoming dull and dreary, the wind sighed sorrowfully up and down the valley, and I was sorry for Mummery on the inhospitable slopes of the great mountain. Mummery spent the night on the top of the second rib of rocks, and next day he climbed about a thousand feet up the third rib, where he left a rucksack with food. The climb was carried out almost entirely in mist; in fact, in the afternoon down at the camp the mist and rain made things thoroughly uncomfortable. I was beginning to get anxious about Mummery, for he did not come back by sunset, and the night promised to be one of drenching rain. But later, in the dark, he marched back into camp, entirely wet through, but far more cheerful than the circumstances warranted, and very pleased with the climbing. His account of the ice world on Nanga Parbat was wonderful. Nowhere in the Caucasus had he seen anything to compare with it. Avalanches had fallen down thousands of feet, set at an angle of over 60 degrees, that would have almost swept away towns. The crevasses were enormous, and the rock-climbing, although difficult, was set at such a steep angle that no time would be lost in making height towards the upper glacier underneath the final peak. If only the weather would clear, Mummery was sure that we could get on to this upper glacier. But the weather sulked and was against us, it rained nearly all the next day, finishing up with a tremendous thunderstorm. In hope that fine weather would now set in, we turned into our tents for the night. About midnight, gusts of cold wind began to moan amongst the stunted pines that surrounded our tents; then, gathering in force, this demon of the mountains howled round our tents, and snow came down in driven sheets. The anger of the spirits that inhabited the mountains had been roused, we were being informed of what awaited us, should we persist in our impious endeavours to penetrate into the sanctuaries above.
Many times in the pitch darkness of the night I thought the small Mummery tent I was in would be simply torn in pieces, but towards daylight the hurricane gradually died away, and by nine o'clock the sun came out. The scene, when I emerged from the tent, I shall never forget. Bright sunshine and dazzling white snow—but where were all the groves of rhododendron bushes, from four to five feet high, that yesterday had surrounded our camp? Loaded with the snow, they had been beaten flat, and lay there plastered and stuck tight to the ground, by the ice and snow of the blizzard of the night before.