MOUNTAIN SICKNESS: GNATONG: WAYSIDE WITTICISMS
Those ailments which are described by the word sickness, joined to a
prefix, are of two kinds. Either the prefix is the cause of the disease,
as in the case of sea sickness, or the expression is a _lucus a non
lucendo_, as in the case of 'home sickness,' the cause of the sickness
being in the latter case the exact contradictory of the prefix.
Sometimes the two kinds are combined, as in the case of love sickness,
when both love itself and also the lack of love are the simultaneous
cause of the disorder.
Mountain sickness, on the other hand, may be of either kind, though not
of both at once. I have often had bad mountain sickness of the one kind
in the plains of India. Any one who has spent his boyhood scampering
over Scotch hills or in similar pastimes is peculiarly prone to this
form of the disease towards the end of a hot June. Ten days' leave, or
more if possible, is then the only remedy. I had never experienced the
other form till I reached Gnatong. I don't exactly know how doctors
describe it in diagnosis. I believe, though, that they attribute it in
some way to your blood not running up the hill as fast as you do
yourself, which results in blood collecting in your toes, which ought to
be running about your brain and lungs. Hence giddiness, nausea,
headache, loss of appetite, insomnia, difficulty in breathing, and,
saddest of all in some cases, an utter inability to enjoy either your
drink or your tobacco.
I got it badly with all the symptoms, including the last two. I was
supposed to be very busy helping to see each column onwards. They were
got through without difficulty--no one would stay at Gnatong an hour
longer than he could help. So I suppose I performed my share of the work
all right, though it was done from bed. There was no one there to
supervise my work, and I therefore did not have to go upon the sick
list; but even so the feeling of being incapacitated by some accidental
ailment at the beginning of an expedition, and of its possibly
preventing you from reaching the front, is one of the most trying of
ordeals.
The number of victims of mountain sickness at Gnatong was considerable.
There was an enterprising Parsi merchant who had opened a store there.
His wealth of tinned provisions and whiskey lay in the shop
comparatively disregarded, but he did a roaring trade in phenacetin and
Stearne's headache cure among the mountain sick.
Mountain sickness is like measles. If you get a really good go of it,
you are not likely to be soon attacked again by it, even though you
have to ascend to an altitude far higher than that at which you
originally succumbed. Many a man lay gasping for several days at
Gnatong, which was only twelve thousand odd feet up, and later on
climbed the Karo-La (16,800 feet) on his own flat feet, smiling.
'The last long streak of snow' was just fading as I reached Gnatong at
the end of May. It was not very cold, but bitterly raw and damp. I
occupied a hut, which contained a fireplace, and would have made myself
cosy and warm if the fire had not always smoked. This involved that
distressing dilemma between having a fire and also a roomful of smoke,
which had to be periodically emptied by opening the door and window, and
so letting in cold and rain and mist, or sitting in a chilly damp
atmosphere without a fire, but, on the other hand, without either smoke
or violent draughts. This is a petty detail, but I mention it, since to
the many people who spent their time mainly in posts on the line of
communication, and lived in huts, this must have been an ever-recurring
dilemma and a primary feature of their existence.
Gnatong had been an important place during the last Sikkim Expedition.
For the purposes of the present Expedition it has been renovated. The
men so employed had been merry fellows, with eyes for that nice,
innocent, feeble, but well-meant joke, which you appreciate on service,
even though in peace time you might elect to be bored by it. These hut
builders and road makers had been lavish of sign-posts. The Gnatong post
was placarded everywhere on the inside with the names of its tiny
streets. It appeared that we were occupying what was on the whole a
straggling but quite a fashionable part of London. I myself lived at
'Hyde Park Corner.' The post commandant, if I remember right, occupied a
mansion in 'Carlton Gardens.' We went for constitutionals up and down
'Rotten Row,' and found 'Buckingham Palace' used as a supply depot.
This art of writing mildly amusing notice-boards was not confined to
Gnatong. On a bit of the military road near Chumbi, where the roadmakers
had to revet it carefully to prevent it falling into the river, there
was a neat little sign-board describing this strip of roadway as 'The
Embankment.' Outside the dak bungalow at Rangpo was a large placard on
which was printed 'Mount Nelson Hotel. No Ragging allowed.' On the top
of the Natu-La--one of the passes dividing Sikkim from Tibet--there is
the following:
[Illustration]
Poor jokes all of them, aren't they? but just as poor fare can be eaten
with a relish after a hard day's marching; so poor jokes tickle the
mental palate of the simple soldier and the stupid officer on service,
just as effectively as do good ones.