We must go back a while in the narrative. On having reached the summit
and delivered themselves of the instruments, cameras, etc., which they
carried, the men immediately threw themselves down and fell fast
asleep, breathing heavily and quite exhausted. I let them rest awhile
before taking observations upon them. When I woke them up one by one
they did not respond very quickly,—as they usually did,—but seemed to
remain for some minutes semi-unconscious, as if they had been under the
influence of a narcotic. This was undoubtedly caused by the rarefied
air.
On the ascent above 20,000 feet I had noticed how profuse the
salivation had been with my men; the saliva glands being most active
when the men underwent exertion, but not so much now that they were
stationary. Curiously enough, one of the four men who suffered least
during the ascent and when up there on the summit was a fellow—a
Rajiput by caste—who had never been on a snow mountain in his life. His
determined enthusiasm, I think, and strong will helped him to no mean
extent.
I am unable to give the men’s names here, lest I should expose them to
further persecution from the Government of India, but we will call them
A, B, C, D.
A, 45 years of age, after a good rest, had a fairly regular heart-beat,
but very fast. He felt quite ill, and complained of a severe pressure
at the temples and the top of the head. Every two minutes or so his
lungs and heart showed some convulsive movements; also abnormal
movements were noticeable in the centre of the chest. His pulse
registered 105 beats a minute, and was extremely faint, while his
temperature was 102°. This was the man who broke a blood-vessel.
B, a Shoka, 50 years old, and who had constantly lived at great
elevations, had a stronger pulse, 80 pulsations per minute, with a
temperature of 100°·2. His forehead was burning, and he had a strong
buzzing in his ears. Pain and convulsive movements in the lungs, and
also in the centre of chest, every few breaths.
C, a powerfully-built Shoka, felt abnormal weakness, although his pulse
was only 78, quite regular, but so faint that one could hardly feel it.
The heart, too, beat quite feebly but regularly enough, when not
exerting himself. He had bled considerably on the ascent. His
temperature was 98°. His ears were buzzing, and he suffered from
tormenting pressure in the temples, top and back of skull.
D, the Rajiput, astonished me very much. He only had 76 pulsations,
very steady and strong, although he had bled profusely; his heart beat
violently and throbbed alarmingly every few moments. His respiration
was regular, but slightly quicker than normal. He complained of great
heat in the head. His forehead was burning; his temples, he said,
seemed as if they were being crushed in a claw of iron, and as if his
skull would split. He suffered from great pressure in the tenderest
spot on the top of his skull and also behind the head. His temperature
was 100°·2.
All complained of great heaviness in the legs and arms, of dryness of
the skin, particularly at the forehead and lips, and unquenchable
thirst. The pupils of the eyes were in all cases abnormally contracted,
although the light was not strong at the time of examination.
I was impressed by the distinctness with which sounds travelled; voices
sounding extraordinarily clear, quite crystalline, and if loud and near
producing quite a sharp and uncomfortable impression upon the tympanum
of one’s ears, notwithstanding that the rarefied air caused the
sensation of having my ears stopped with cotton-wool.
After half-an-hour’s rest the observations upon myself were as
follows:—120 pulsations per minute, and heart beating at a similar
rate, rather stronger than usual, but quite regular. Temperature under
tongue 99°·3. The forehead, unlike my men’s, quite cool but feeling
very dry, and there remained a slight pressure along the fissures at
the side of the skull. Both with me and with all my men the temperature
of the body around the heart was greatly increased, and we all suffered
from an insatiable thirst. We constantly filled our mouths with snow
and melted it in order to appease the uncomfortable feeling, but in a
moment the palate and throat felt quite dry, although, as I have
stated, salivation was profuse, especially while eating or taking
exertion.
While my men were busy constructing the cairn I did a very foolish
thing. From our pinnacle down to the glacier below in a vertical line
was a drop of some 6500 feet, and for some reason or other I took it
into my head to go and sit on the edge and dangle my legs over the
precipice. You see, one does not always have an opportunity of having
so much room to dangle one’s legs and feet in! In order to avoid
accidents I knocked off some of the surface snow and then, helped by
one of my men—who entered fully into the humour of the situation—I sat
myself down.
I was gaily kicking my feet about, when my man shouted that the ice and
rock were giving way from under me. Before I had time to get up from my
unpleasant position the fellow had pluck and sense enough to try and
reach over, seizing me firmly by the wrist, and as the rock and ice and
snow went from under, not only were my legs dangling over the
precipice, but my whole body was suspended in mid-air.
It seems that in his efforts to save me I might have dragged the man
down as well, had it not been for the presence of mind of a third
fellow who interrupted the construction of our cairn and seized my
saviour by the legs. After some dangling about—which seemed to last a
very long time—they eventually pulled me up.
Now, had those men been English or Scotch or Irish or French, this
incident might have supplied them with some excitement and a topic of
conversation for some time. But no; the man B, who had caught me in the
first instance, felt with his foot a spot where the snow seemed firm
enough, and he placidly remarked: “Sit down here, Sahib, this will not
give way,” and he sat himself down as if nothing had happened, while
the man C resumed the construction of the cairn without any comment.
My heart thumped a good deal from the sudden jerk—not to speak of the
prospect of the unexpected flight—but on feeling myself all over and
finding that I had not lost anything from my pockets, nor my straw hat,
I soon felt quite happy again. A glance at the two sketches
illustrating this incident will, I think, give a clearer idea of the
situation than the description.
We remained about an hour on our lofty pinnacle, the temperature in the
sun being 70°, and then we made our way down. Holding one another by
the hand we slid down the steep incline at a precipitous pace. The
distance which had taken us hours of toiling and panting in our ascent,
only took us a very short time in the descent. A thick mist was coming
on and my men were most anxious to get down quick.
We were sliding down at a terrific rate, using our feet as brakes to
control the velocity when it got too dangerous. We eventually found
ourselves again on the loose débris and here, too, we went down several
yards at each step, carrying down with us a mass of loose stones—a
regular land-slide—which rolled right down to the bottom with
tremendous fracas.
As we got lower, we all felt notable relief in breathing, and we halted
for a few minutes to pick up the men we had left below. They had
obtained a good rest, and were feeling better.
We gave a parting look to the magnificent glacier—which I named the
Charles Landor, after my father—and its stupendous irregular terraces
of clear ice rising vertically over 1000 feet in height. The terraces
were undulating on their summit, and showed a tendency to precipitate
towards the southern side.
On our return we followed a simpler plan. The tail of the glacier
showed three high ridges of ice, covered farther down with débris,
these ridges—two lateral and a central one—running practically parallel
to each other and being formed by the forcing up of the ice at the
sides and in the centre. Also, the snow precipitated from the sides of
the mountains would tend to increase their height—while the heat of the
mountain rock would cause the snow in its immediate neighbourhood to
melt, and thus leave a channel clear between the mountain itself and
the dunes thus formed. As there was some snow on the summit of these
dunes one got a fair grip with one’s feet; and walking upon their
summit involved no great difficulty, except that when one had balanced
oneself upon them for long distances one occasionally felt a little
giddy. This was, nevertheless, a great improvement upon walking down
below among the crevasses, holes, and pools, as we had done in the
morning, and saved us no end of time and exertion. True enough, if we
had slipped we might have shot down with some force into a crevasse
with little hope of coming out alive, but we must not slip, that was
all. As each of us had to look after himself, we were mighty careful
where and how we put our feet.
The central ridge here, as in most other glaciers, was usually higher
and sharper-edged than the lateral ones, and had also a more uneven
summit, rather like the conventional wave pattern, inverted arcs of a
circle coming in contact and forming pointed summits. We travelled on
the ridge to our left on leaving the glacier.
At six o’clock in the evening we again reached camp—oh, how glad we
were!—having been on the go steadily for thirteen hours, during which
time we had covered sixteen miles. This was not at all bad, at such
elevations and on such difficult ground. Of course, most of that
distance was between the camp and the glacier at the foot of the Lumpa
basin; the actual distance from the glacier to the summit, although
occupying the greater portion of the time, being comparatively small.
There were great rejoicings in camp that night, and they took the form
of an elaborate—but only half-cooked—meal, our fuel giving out in the
middle of the cooking. You see, at high elevations water takes such a
long time to boil; in fact, it boils without being hot. At that
particular camp it boiled at 187°·3—and cooking took an interminable
time. With a display before me—and it did not remain a display very
long—of tepid Bovril soup, sardines, army ration stew (semi-stewed),
corned beef, tinned plum pudding (Lord! it felt heavy even up there!),
and a warmish mug of chocolate—I felt as happy again—in fact, happier
than a king!