Mount Everest the Reconnaissance, 1921 Part 1

Mount Everest the Reconnaissance, 1921.

by Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury and George H. Leigh-Mallory and A. F. R. Wollaston.

PREFACE

The Mount Everest Committee of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club desire to express their thanks to Colonel Howard-Bury, Mr. Wollaston, Mr. Mallory, Major Morshead, Major Wheeler and Dr. Heron for the trouble they have taken to write so soon after their return an account of their several parts in the joint work of the Expedition. They have thereby enabled the present Expedition to start with full knowledge of the results of the reconnaissance, and the public to follow the progress of the attempt to reach the summit with full information at hand.

The Committee also wish to take this opportunity of thanking the Imperial Dry Plate Company for having generously presented photographic plates to the Expedition and so contributed to the production of the excellent photographs that have been brought back.

They also desire to thank the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company for their liberality in allowing the members to travel at reduced fares; and the Government of India for allowing the stores and equipment of the Expedition to enter India free of duty.

J. E. C. EATON } A. R. HINKS } _Hon. Secretaries._

INTRODUCTION

BY SIR FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND, K.C.S.I., K.C.I.E.

The idea of climbing Mount Everest has been vaguely in men's mind for thirty or forty years past. Certainly that veteran mountain-climber and mountain-lover, Douglas Freshfield, had it persistently rising within him as he broke away from the Swiss Alps and subdued the giants of the Caucasus and then sought still higher peaks to conquer. Lord Curzon also had had it in his mind, and when Viceroy of India had written suggesting that the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club should make a joint exploration of the mountain. Bruce, Longstaff and Mumm would have made this exploration in 1905 if the permission of the Nepalese and Tibetan Governments had been available. So also would Rawling a few years later. All these, and doubtless others, had contemplated at least a preliminary reconnaissance of Mount Everest.

But, so far as I know, the first man to propose a definite expedition to Mount Everest was the then Captain Bruce, who, when he and I were together in Chitral in 1893, proposed to me that we should make a glorious termination to a journey from Chinese Turkestan across Tibet by ascending Mount Everest. And it is Bruce who has held to the idea ever since and sought any opportunity that offered of getting at the mountain.

It stands to reason that men with any zest for mountaineering could not possibly allow Mount Everest to remain untouched. The time, the opportunity, the money, the ability to make the necessary preliminary preparation might be lacking, but the wish and the will to stand on the summit of the world's highest mountain must have been in the heart of many a mountaineer since the Alps have been so firmly trampled under foot. The higher climbers climb, the higher they want to climb. It is certain that they will never rest content till the proudest peaks of the Himalaya are as subdued and tamed as the once dreaded summits of the Alps now are.

Men simply cannot resist exercising and stretching to their fullest tether the faculties and apt.i.tudes with which they each happen to be specially endowed. One born with an apt.i.tude for painting is dull and morose and fidgety until he can get colours and a brush into his hand and commence painting. Another is itching to make things--to use his hands and fas.h.i.+on wood or stone or metal into forms which he is continually creating in his mind. Another is restless until he can sing.

Another is ever pining to be on a public platform swaying the audience with his oratory and playing on their feelings as on a musical instrument. Each has his own inner apt.i.tude which he aches to give vent to and bring into play. And more than this, he secretly owns within himself an exceedingly high standard--the highest standard--of what he wants to attain to along his own particular line, and he is never really content in his mind and at peace with himself when he is not stretching himself out to the full towards this high pinnacle which he has set before him.

Now fortunately all men are not born with the same apt.i.tudes. We do not all want to sing or all want to orate or all want to paint. Some few want to climb mountains. These men love to pit themselves against what most others would consider an insuperable obstacle. They enjoy measuring themselves against it and being forced to exercise all their energies and faculties to overcome it. The Duke of the Abruzzi is as good an example of this type as I know. He was never happy until he had discovered some inaccessible and impracticable mountain and then thrown himself against it and come to grips with it in dead earnest and either conquered it or been thrown back from it utterly and completely exhausted, but with the satisfaction that anyhow he had exercised every nerve and muscle and faculty to the full. His native mountains he had early conquered over and over again, so he had to look further afield to Mount Elias in Alaska and Ruwenzori in East Africa; and having vanquished these he would doubtless have turned his eyes to Mount Everest if for political reasons the way to that mountain had not been barred, and he was compelled therefore to look to the next highest mountain, namely, the peak K2 in the Karakoram Himalaya in the neighbourhood of which he attained to a greater height, 24,600 feet, than has yet been attained by any man on foot.

The Duke no doubt is human and would like his name to go down to posterity as having conquered some conspicuously lofty and difficult peak. But undoubtedly the ruling pa.s.sion with him would be this love of pitting himself against a great mountain and feeling that he was being forced to exert himself to the full. To such men a tussle with a mountain is a real tonic--something bracing and refres.h.i.+ng. And even if they are laid out flat by the mountain instead of standing triumphant on its summit they have enjoyed the struggle and would go back for another if they ever had the chance.

Others--like Bruce--climb from sheer exuberance of spirits. Blessed with boundless energy they revel in its exercise. It is only on the mountain side, breathing its pure air, buffeting against its storms, testing their nerve, running hair-breadth risks, exercising their intelligence and judgment, feeling their manhood and looking on Nature face to face and with open heart and mind that they are truly happy. For these men days on the mountain are days when they really live. And as the cobwebs in their brains get blown away, as the blood begins to course refres.h.i.+ngly through their veins, as all their faculties become tuned up and their whole being becomes more sensitive, they detect appeals from Nature they had never heard before and see beauties which are revealed only to those who win them. They may not at the moment be aware of the deepest impressions they are receiving. But to those who have struggled with them the mountains reveal beauties they will not disclose to those who make no effort. That is the reward the mountains give to effort. And it is because they have much to give and give it so lavishly to those who will wrestle with them that men love the mountains and go back to them again and again.

And naturally the mountains reserve their choicest gifts for those who stand upon their summits. The climber's vision is then no longer confined and enclosed. He can see now all round. His width of outlook is enlarged to its full extremity. He sees in every direction. He has a sense of being raised above the world and being proudly conscious that he has raised himself there by his own exertions, he has a peculiar satisfaction and for the time forgets all frets and worries in the serener atmosphere in which he now for a moment dwells.

And it is only for a moment that he can dwell there. For men cannot always live on the heights. They must come down to the plains again and engage in the practical life of the world. But the vision from the heights never leaves them. They want to return there. They want to reach a higher height. Their standard of achievement rises. And so it has come about that mountaineers when they had climbed the highest heights in Europe went off to the Caucasus, to the Andes, and eventually to the Himalaya to climb something higher still. Freshfield conquered the Caucasus, Whymper and Conway the Andes, and the a.s.sault upon the Himalaya is now in full swing.

It is therefore only in the natural course of things that men should want to climb the highest summit of the Himalaya. And though those who set out to climb Mount Everest will probably think little of the eventual results, being perfectly satisfied in their own minds, without any elaborate reasoning, that what they are attempting is something supremely worth while, yet it is easy for lookers on to see that much unexpected good will result from their activities. The climbers will be actuated by sheer love of mountaineering, and that is enough for them.

But climbing Mount Everest is no futile and useless performance of no satisfaction to anyone but the climbers. Results will follow from it of the highest value to mankind at large.

For the climbers are unwittingly carrying out an experiment of momentous consequence to mankind. They are testing the capacity of the human race to stand the highest alt.i.tudes on this earth which is its home. No scientific man, no physiologist or physician, can now say for certain whether or not a human body can reach a height of 29,000 feet above the sea. We know that in an aeroplane he can be carried up to a much greater height. But we do not know whether he can climb on his own feet such an alt.i.tude. That knowledge of men's capacity can only be acquired by practical experiment in the field.

And in the process of acquiring the knowledge a valuable result will ensue. By testing their capacities men actually increase them. By exercising their capacities to the full mountaineers seem to enlarge them. A century ago the ascent of Mount Blanc seemed the limit of human capacity. Nowadays hundreds ascend the mountain every year. And going further afield men ascended the highest peaks in the Caucasus and then in the Andes and have been reaching higher and higher alt.i.tudes in the Himalaya. Conway reached 23,000 feet, Kellas 23,186 feet, Longstaff 23,360 feet, Dr. Workman 23,000 feet, Kellas and Meade 23,600 feet and the Duke of the Abruzzi 24,600 feet. It looks therefore as if man by attempting more was actually making himself capable of achieving more.

By straining after the highest he is increasing his capacity to attain it.

In this measuring of themselves against the mountains men are indeed very like puppies crawling about and testing their capacities on their surroundings--crawling up on to some obstacle, tumbling back discomfited but returning gallantly to the attack and at last triumphantly surmounting it. Thus do they find out what they can do and how they stand in relation to their surroundings. Also by exercising and stretching their muscles and faculties to the full they actually increase their capacity.

Men are still only in the puppy stage of existence. We are p.r.o.ne to think ourselves very "grown up" but really we are only in our childhood.

In the latest discussions as to the period of time which must have elapsed since life first appeared upon this earth a period of the order of a thousand million years was named. But of that immense period man has been in existence for only a quarter or half a million years. So the probability is that he has still long years before him and must be now only in his childhood--in his puppyhood. We certainly find that as he inquisitively looks about his surroundings and measures himself against them he is steadily increasing his mastery over them. In the last five hundred years record after record has been beaten. Men have ventured more and shown more adaptability and a sterner hardihood and endurance than ever before. They have ventured across the oceans, circ.u.mnavigated the globe, reached the poles, risen into the air, and it can be only a question of time--a few months or a few years--before they reach the highest summit of the earth.

"What then?" some will ask. "Suppose men do reach the top of Mount Everest, what then?" "Suppose we do establish the fact that man has the capacity to surmount the highest summit of his surroundings, of what good is that knowledge?" This is the kind of question promoters of the enterprise continually have to answer. One reply is obvious. The sight of climbers struggling upwards to the supreme pinnacle will have taught men to lift their eyes unto the hills--to raise them off the ground and direct them, if only for a moment, to something pure and lofty and satisfying to that inner craving for the worthiest which all men have hidden in their souls. And when they see men thrown back at first but venturing again and again to the a.s.sault till with faltering footsteps and gasping breaths they at last reach the summit they will thrill with pride. They will no longer be obsessed with the thought of what mites they are in comparison with the mountains--how insignificant they are beside their material surroundings. They will have a proper pride in themselves and a well-grounded faith in the capacity of spirit to dominate material.

And direct practical results flow from this increasing confidence which man is acquiring in face of the mountains. A century ago Napoleon's crossing of the Alps was thought an astounding feat. During the last thirty years troops--and Indian troops--have been moved about the Himalaya in all seasons and crossed pa.s.ses over 15,000 feet above sea level in the depth of winter. On the Gilgit frontier, in Chitral, and in Tibet, neither cold nor snow nor wind stopped them. In winter or in summer, in spring or in autumn, they have faced the Himalayan pa.s.ses.

And they have been able to negotiate them successfully because of their increased knowledge of men's capacities and of the way to overcome difficulties that constant wrestling with mountains in all parts of the world during the last half-century has given. The activities of the Alpine Club have produced direct practical results in the movement of troops in the Himalaya.

More still will follow. When men have proved that they can surmount the highest peak in the Himalaya they will take heart to climb other peaks and become more and more at home in that wonderful region, extending for nigh two thousand miles from the Roof of the World in the North and West to the borders of Burma and China in the South and East and containing more than seventy peaks over 24,000 feet in height--that is higher than any in the Andes, the second highest range of mountains in the world--and more than eleven hundred peaks over 20,000 feet in height.

This great mountain region which in Europe would stretch from Calais to the Caspian is one vast mine of beauty of every varied description. And a mine of beauty has this advantage over a mine of material wealth--that we can never exhaust it. And not only can we never exhaust it, but the more we take out the more we find, and the more we give away the richer we are. We may go on digging into a gold mine, but eventually we shall find there is no gold left. We shall have exhausted our mine. But we may dig into that mine of beauty in the Himalaya and never exhaust it. The more we dig the more we shall find--richer beauty, subtler beauty, more varied beauty--beauty of mountain form and beauty of pure and delicate colour, beauty of forest, beauty of river and beauty of lake and combined beauty of rus.h.i.+ng torrent, precipitous cliff, richest vegetation and overtopping snowy summit. And when we have discovered these treasures and made them our own we can actually increase their value to ourselves by giving them away to others. By imparting to others the enjoyment which we have felt we shall have increased our own enjoyment.

We cannot expect those who are first engaged in climbing Mount Everest to have the time or inclination to observe and describe the full beauty there is. They will be set on overcoming the physical difficulties and they will be so exhausted for the moment by the effort they will have made that they will not have the repose of mind which is so necessary for seeing and depicting beauty. But when they have pioneered the way and beaten down a path, others will more leisurely follow after. Many even of these may not be able to express in words or in picture the enjoyment they have felt and be able to communicate it to others. They may not be given to public speech or writing and may have no capacity for painting. The flame of their enjoyment may be kept sacred and hidden within them, and it may be only in the privacy of colloquy with some kindred soul that the white glow of their enjoyment may ever be shown.

But, others there may be who have the capacity for making the world at large share with them some little of the joy they have felt--who can make our nerves tingle and our blood course quicker, our eyes uplift themselves and our outlook widen as we go out with them to face and overcome the mountains. Such men as these from their very intimacy with the mountains are able to point out beauties which distant beholders would never suspect. And as Leslie Stephen through his love of mountains has been able to attract thousands to the Alps and given them enjoyment, clean and fresh, which but for him they might never have known, so we hope that in the fulness of time a greater Stephen will tell of the unsurpa.s.sable beauty of the Himalaya and by so doing add appreciably to the enjoyment of human life.

Such are some of the advantages which men in general will obtain from the attempt to climb Mount Everest. But it is time now to say something of the mountain itself.

Mount Everest for its size is a singularly shy and retiring mountain. It hides itself away behind other mountains. On the north side, in Tibet, it does indeed stand up proudly and alone, a true monarch among mountains. But it stands in a very spa.r.s.ely inhabited part of Tibet, and very few people ever go to Tibet. From the Indian side only its tip appears among a mighty array of peaks which being nearer look higher.

Consequently for a long time no one suspected Mount Everest of being the supreme mountain not only of the Himalaya but of the world. At the time when Hooker was making his Himalayan journeys--that was in 1849--Kanchenjunga was believed to be the highest.

How it was eventually discovered to be the highest is a story worth recording. In the very year that Hooker was botanising in the Sikkim Himalaya the officers of the Great Trigonometrical Survey were making observations from the plains of India to the peaks in Nepal which could be seen from there. When they could find a native name for a peak they called it by that name. But in most cases no native name was forthcoming, and in those cases a Roman number was affixed to the peak.

Among these unnamed peaks to which observations to determine the alt.i.tude and position were taken from stations in the plains was Peak XV. The observations were recorded, but the resulting height was not computed till three years later, and then one day the Bengali Chief Computer rushed into the room of the Surveyor-General, Sir Andrew Waugh, breathlessly exclaiming, "Sir! I have discovered the highest mountain in the world." The mean result of all the observations taken from the six stations from which Peak XV had been observed came to 29,002 feet, and this Peak XV is what is now known as Mount Everest.

The question is often asked, "Why twenty-nine thousand and two?" "Why be so particular about the two?" The answer is that that particular figure is the mean of many observations. But it is not infallible. It is indeed in all probability below rather than above the mark, and a later computation of the observed results puts the height at 29,141 feet. In any case, however, there are, as Sir Sidney Burrard has pointed out in his discussion of this point in Burrard and Hayden's _Himalaya and Tibet_, many causes of slight error in observing and computing the alt.i.tude of a distant and very lofty peak. The observations are made with a theodolite. The telescope of the theodolite may not be absolutely perfect. The theodolite may not be levelled with perfect accuracy. The graduations on the circle of the theodolite may not be quite accurate.

The observer himself may not have observed with sufficient perfection.

An error of ten feet may have resulted from these causes. Then there are other and greater sources of possible error. There may be error in the a.s.sumed height of the observing station; and the alt.i.tudes of peaks are always varying in nature with the increase and decrease of snow in summer and winter and in a season of heavy snowfall or a season of light snowfall. Another source of error arises from the varying effects of gravitational attraction. "The attraction of the great ma.s.s of the Himalaya and Tibet," says Burrard, "pulls all liquids towards itself, as the moon attracts the ocean and the surface of the water a.s.sumes an irregular form at the foot of the Himalaya. If the ocean were to overflow Northern India its surface would be deformed by Himalayan attraction. The liquid in levels is similarly affected and theodolites cannot consequently be adjusted; their plates when levelled are still tilted upward towards the mountains, and angles of observation are too small by the amount the horizon is inclined to the tangential plane. At Darjeeling the surface of water in repose is inclined about 35" to this plane, at Kurseong about 51", at Siliguri about 23", at Dehra Dun and Mussooree about 37". For this reason all angles of elevation to Himalayan peaks measured from the plains, as Mount Everest was measured, are too small and consequently all our values of Himalayan heights are too small. Errors of this nature range from 40 to 100 feet."

This then is a considerable source of error, but the most serious source of uncertainty affecting the value of heights is the refraction of the atmosphere. A ray of light from a peak to an observer's eye does not travel along a straight line but a.s.sumes a curved path concave to the earth. The ray enters the observer's eye in a direction tangential to the curve at that point, and this is the direction in which the observer sees the peak. It makes the peak appear too high. Corrections have therefore to be applied. But there is no certainty as to what should be the amount of the correction; and it is now believed that the computers of the height of Mount Everest applied too great a correction for refraction and consequently reduced its height too much.

The height 29,141 is still, Burrard thinks, too small, as it has yet to be corrected for the deviations of gravity. But though it is a more reliable result than 29,002, the latter is still to be retained in maps and publications of the Survey of India.

As to the name, it was called Everest after the distinguished Surveyor-General of India under whose direction the triangulation had been carried out, one result of which was the discovery of the mountain.

From the Indian side and Nepal it is not a conspicuous peak on account of its lying so far back. No native name for it could be discovered and Sir Andrew Waugh, the successor of Sir George Everest, called it after his predecessor. From the Tibetan side it is much more conspicuous and, as General Bruce stated in his lecture to the Royal Geographical Society in November 1920, and as Colonel Howard-Bury found in 1921, the Tibetans call it Ch.o.m.olungma, which Colonel Howard-Bury translated, the "G.o.ddess Mother of the Mountains"--a most appropriate name. But the name Mount Everest is now so firmly established throughout the world that it would be impossible to change it. It is therefore now definitely adopted.

Now, this mountain so coveted by mountaineers is unfortunately situated exactly on the border between two of the most secluded countries in the world--Nepal and Tibet. To reach it the climbers must pa.s.s through one or other of these countries and the difficulty of getting the necessary permission is what has so far prevented any attempt being made to attack Mount Everest. But recently access through Tibet has become more possible, and it so happens that it is on the Tibetan side that the summit seems most accessible. From the distant views that could be obtained of it from Sandakphu beyond Darjeeling and from Kampa Dzong in Tibet, a ridge running from the summit in a northerly direction seemed to give good promise of access. Major Ryder and Captain Rawling in 1904, viewing the mountain from a distance of sixty miles almost due north, thought the mountain might be approached from that direction. At the same time the Tibetans were distinctly more favourable to travellers than they had ever been before. The chances therefore of at least exploring Mount Everest were much more promising, and Major Rawling was planning an expedition of exploration when the war broke out and he was killed.

Mr. Douglas Freshfield would certainly have taken the matter up during his Presidency of the Royal Geographical Society, but he had the misfortune to hold that post during the years of the war and no action was possible. But as soon as the war was over interest in Mount Everest revived. In March 1919 Captain J. B. L. Noel read a paper to the Royal Geographical Society describing a reconnaissance he had made in the direction of the mountain in the year 1913. He showed how attention during the last few years had been focused more and more upon the Himalaya and said, "Now that the Poles have been reached, it is generally felt that the next and equally important task is the exploration and mapping of Mount Everest." So he urged that the exploration which had been the ambition of the late General Rawling with whom he was to have joined should be accomplished in his memory. "It cannot be long," he continued, "before the culminating summit of the world is visited and its ridges, valleys and glaciers are mapped and photographed." And at the conclusion of his lecture he said that "some day the political difficulties will be overcome and a fully equipped expedition must explore and map Mount Everest."

It was not clear whether Captain Noel was advocating a definite attempt to climb the mountain and reach the actual summit, and Mr. Douglas Freshfield and Dr. Kellas who followed after him referred only to the approaches to Mount Everest. But Captain J. P. Farrar, the then President of the Alpine Club, seems to have considered it "a proposal to attempt the ascent of Mount Everest," and said that the Alpine Club took the keenest interest in the proposal and was prepared not only to lend such financial aid as was in its power, but also to recommend two or three young mountaineers quite capable of dealing with any purely mountaineering difficulties which were likely to be met with on Mount Everest.

The hour was late, but I was so struck by the ring of a.s.surance and determination in the words of the President of the Alpine Club that I could not help asking the President, Sir Thomas Holdich, to let me say a few words. I then told how General Bruce had made to me, twenty-six years ago, the proposal to climb Mount Everest. I said the Royal Geographical Society was interested in the project and now we had heard the President of the Alpine Club say that he had young mountaineers ready to undertake the work. I added, "It must be done." There might be one or two attempts before we were successful, but the first thing to do was to get over the trouble with our own Government. If they were approached properly by Societies like the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club, and a reasonable scheme were put before them and it were proved to them that we meant business, then, I said, they would be reasonable and do what we wanted. This was a big business and must be done in a big way and I hoped that something really serious would come of that meeting.[1]