Mount Everest, the Reconnaissance, 1921. George Mallory
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a captain in the Tibetan army, and who had left them and been attached to the Indian army in Egypt during the war. He was a most energetic, hard-working man, knew all the Tibetan manners and customs, and was up to all their tricks of procrastination and attempts at overcharging. By his knowledge and persuasive powers the Expedition was saved many thousand rupees.
The Expedition when it left Darjeeling included nine Europeans. The Alpine climbers were Mr. Harold Raeburn, Dr. A. M. Kellas, Mr. G. L. Mallory and Mr. C. H. Bullock. Dr. Kellas had unfortunately in the early spring of this year tried his constitution very severely by climbing Narsing,[2] and he had also spent several nights at very low temperatures in camps over 20,000 feet, on the slopes of Kabru,[2] so that when he arrived at Darjeeling a few days before the Expedition was due to start, he was not in as fit a condition as he should have been. The two Surveyors were Major H. T. Morshead, D.S.O., and Major O. E. Wheeler, M.C. These officers had been lent by the Survey of India. Major Morshead had already a considerable experience of travelling in the Eastern borders of Tibet and in the Kham country, where he had carried out some useful survey work, and under him were three native surveyors, one of whom was left in Sikkim to revise the existing maps, which were very inaccurate, while the other two, Gujjar Singh and Lalbir Singh, accompanied the Expedition and filled in all the details of the country traversed on their plane tables at a scale of 4 miles to the inch. Major O. E. Wheeler, the other Surveyor, was a member of the Canadian Alpine Club and a very keen climber himself. He was an expert in the Canadian system of Photo Survey—a method especially useful and applicable to a difficult and mountainous country. The Indian Government had also lent the Expedition the services of Dr. A. M. Heron, of the Geological Survey of India, in order to study the geology of the country through which it was about to go, and about which nothing was known, and to investigate the problems which surround the age and the structure of the Himalayan range. Besides these, there was Mr. A. F. Wollaston, a member of the Alpine Club and a very distinguished traveller as well, who had made some most interesting journeys around Ruwenzori in Africa and in the interior of New Guinea. He accompanied the Expedition in the capacity of Doctor, Naturalist and Botanist, and was equipped with a complete collector's outfit.
During our time of enforced waiting at Darjeeling, we came in for the Lebong races—a unique and very amusing entertainment. The course is a small circular one, where the top of the Lebong spur has been levelled, and only genuine Tibetan and Bhotia ponies are allowed to race there. There were always large entries for these races, as they were very popular among the hill-folk, who flocked into Darjeeling from great distances, dressed in their finest clothes and with their women covered with jewellery and wearing clothing of brilliant shades of green and red. There was very heavy betting on each race, and the amount of money that the coolies, sirdars or servants were able to put up was astonishing. In most of the races there was at least a field of ten, which made the start a very amusing affair. The jockeys were all hill-boys, and as they and the ponies were up to every dodge and trick, and were equally anxious to get off first, and as most of the ponies had mouths of iron, it was always a long time before a start could be made, and in nearly every race one or more of the ponies would run out of the course at the point nearest its own home.
On May 13 Major Morshead with his assistant surveyors and fifty coolies left Darjeeling for Khamba Dzong. They went the direct road up the Teesta Valley correcting the Sikkim map as they went along. Their object in going this way was to connect the Indian Survey with the new survey that it was proposed to carry out in Tibet. This would occupy all Major Morshead's time until we should be able to join him at Khamba Dzong in June.
The chief transport of the Expedition consisted of 100 mules belonging to the Supply and Transport Corps and lent to us by the Commander-in-Chief. These arrived at Darjeeling a few days before we were due to start and were camped in the open on the old parade ground at the top of Katapahar. Sub-Conductor Taylor, who had already had experience of mule transport in Tibet in 1904–5, and was to have come in charge of them, was unfortunately laid up at the last moment with a bad attack of influenza. The next man chosen was passed medically unfit, and the third man in temporary charge of the mules was, when he arrived at Darjeeling, already suffering from ague. It was not till May 15 that Sergeant Fowkes arrived, who was to take charge of the mules. He was a very capable and energetic N.C.O., and their subsequent failure was in no way due to him, but solely to the fact that the mules were in no kind of condition to do hard work in the hills, being sleek and fat from the plains where they had had very little work to do. The muleteers, or drabies, were all hill-men and had been picked out specially for us and fitted out with every kind of warm clothing. Though there were a hundred mules, this did not mean that there were a hundred mules to carry our loads—so much extra warm clothing and blankets had been given to the drabies that together with all their line gear it needed twenty-seven mules to carry their kit, which left only seventy-three mules for the Expedition loads, each mule carrying 160 lb., and this was not nearly sufficient for our requirements. A certain amount of our stores had therefore to be left behind at Government House, Darjeeling, for a second journey, and we only took with us sufficient food and supplies for three and a half months, relying on the mules going back and returning with the remainder of the stores in July or August. Owing to the camping grounds being small, and bungalow accommodation limited on the journey across Sikkim, we divided ourselves into two parties with fifty mules and twenty coolies in each party; Wollaston, Wheeler, Mallory and myself being with the first party and Raeburn, Kellas, Bullock and Heron with the second.
The first party left Darjeeling on May 18, and the second party the following day. I remained behind to see the second party off, and then by doing a double march I caught the first party up that evening at Kalimpong, not, however, without noticing on the way that several of our mules were already knocked up. The night before we started rain came down in torrents, and it was still pouring when the mules came round in the morning, and though the rain stopped soon afterwards yet the hillsides were all wreathed in soft grey mists and every moss-hung branch and tree dripped steadily with moisture all day long. The first day's march from Darjeeling was to Peshoke—a seventeen-mile march and down hill all the way after Ghoom. From Darjeeling we gradually ascended some 500 feet to Ghoom and then for 6 miles followed the well-engineered cart road which leads below Senchal to the new military cantonment of Takda which is, I believe, about to be abandoned, as the Gurkhas, for whom it was built, are not at all happy there. During the war it was used as a German internment camp. Along this ridge there are magnificent forests of evergreen oaks, all of which were covered with ferns and orchids and long trailing mosses. This first ridge rising straight out of the plains condenses all the moisture-laden winds that blow up from the Bay of Bengal and causes it almost always to be enveloped in clouds and mists. The path now rapidly descended 4,000 feet, through tea plantations. The whole hillside was covered with tea bushes, neatly planted in lines, and showing a very vivid green at this time of the year. Here and there grew tall tree ferns, 20 feet to 30 feet in height, their stems covered with ferns and Coelogene orchids. The air was now growing hotter and hotter as we descended, but the wonderful and varied vegetation, the beautiful and brilliantly coloured butterflies—for which the Teesta Valley is famous—that flitted across the path in front of us, proved an irresistible attraction, and made us forget the fact that we were dripping with perspiration from every pore. We had already descended nearly 5,000 feet by the time that we reached the P.W.D. bungalow at Peshoke, which was situated in a clearing in the forest. We were, however, still 2,000 feet above the muddy Teesta River which ran down below us in its steamy gorge, and the next morning saw us descending 2,000 feet through a Sal forest by a slippery path of clay leading to the suspension bridge which crosses the mighty river that with its affluents drains the whole of Sikkim. It rushes along with irresistible force in mighty waves and rapids, and though attempts have been made to float timber down it for commercial purposes, yet the current is too swift and the logs were all smashed to pieces. Here at the bridge we were only 700 feet above the sea and the heat was intense. Several mules had been left exhausted at Peshoke and had been unable to proceed the following day and several more only just reached Kalimpong, the second day's march, only 12 miles from Peshoke, but the climb of 3,300 feet up from the bridge over the Teesta in the steamy and enervating heat proved too much for them. The forests here were very beautiful—huge sal trees and giant terminalia