Twenty Years in the Himalaya/Kumaon and Garhwal
On the western borders of Nepal lies the British district of Kumaon, and joined to it and overlapping its northern boundary the district of British Garhwal, the river Sarda fixing the boundary between Kumaon and the western districts of the Nepal kingdom. Lower Kumaon is a very charming district of sub-Himalayan hill country; the lowest slopes of these foot-hills abut on the plains of India, and many merge into the great Terai, or forest belt, which is almost continuous from the Duns of Dehra and Sirhind to the Brahmaputra. Indeed these foot-hills are clothed in sub-tropical jungle, which, though not so luxurious as in the more humid climate of the eastern Himalaya, are still very fine. The main routes from the plains into Kumaon lead either through the picturesque hill station of Naini Talor still more directly to the old capital of Almora. The country is all interesting, and the people evidently well-to-do. Their villages and cottages, though not particularly trim from a European standpoint, are generally neat and well-built and often very picturesquely situated; a pleasant, smiling country with an air of hien ttre, quite different from the really richer districts of Kashmir. In fact, the general cleanliness of the villages is rather exceptional for any part of the Himalaya. I wish one could say as much for the average Kumaoni peasant. As a rule he is a well-born Hindu, generally of Rajput or Brahman extraction. He has none of the virtues of the hillman in general; he is even of slight build and of poor physique, though active. In fact, they say that their women are often better carriers than the men. Numbers of them live half the year in the plains, where they own large herds of cattle, and come up to the hills only for the summer months. Their general character is like their general appearance and physique — mean and unattractive. It is a pity a better race does not own such a charming country. My many trips through Lower Garhwal and the glorious views of the main Himalaya obtained from many points of vantage had determined me some day to travel in this most beautiful section of the Himalaya. Indeed, the views of the great peaks of Trissul, Nanda Devi, and Nandakot, with views stretching even into the Nepal Himalaya itself, as seen from Almora, or still better from the hill station of Binsar, rival even the views from Darjeeling itself. There is nothing quite to compare to the great mass of Kinchenjanga as seen from Darjeeling, no view which gives one the sense of height and depth to such a degree, but the general coup d’oeil the Kumaon hills is nearly as impressive.
When staying with Mr. Alfred Williams, a veteran landscape painter, who at the age of seventy made a most successful artistic attack on the Himalaya, we often discussed the rival attractions of the Darjeeling district and the Kumaon Garhwal Mountains. He, himself an old and experienced mountaineer, used to urge me to arrange an expedition into the Trissul and Nanda Devi group, but I had no idea of such luck coming my way, as the district is situated so far from where my own unit lies in India that I did not expect ever to be able to see my way to it. However, after the disappointment of the projected expedition to Mount Everest in 1907, mentioned in the previous chapters (vide Mr. Mumm’s book. Five Months in the Himalaya), both my companions, at Dr. Longstaff’s suggestion, proposed continuing Dr. Longstaff’s own remarkable exploration in these regions. It was a most charming prospect, and we had a most charming tour. The Viceroy, Lord Minto, who was himself interested in our previous plan, as a consolation for our disappointment helped us immensely by making the necessary arrangements for our trip with Sir John Hewitt, the Lieutenant-Governor of the United Provinces. For indeed a protracted expedition for mountaineering is quite a different thing from a shooting expedition. To begin with, we were six Europeans and nine Goorkhas, riflemen of my regiment (the 5th Goorkha Rifles), and in this poor, or rather let me say non-productive, district, such a number travelling together are hard to arrange for. Further, one has so many special stores and such a special outfit that to move us took no less than 160 porters. In well-populated Kumaon there was no particular difficulty, but in Garhwal, especially by the short cut that we took to the Dhaoli Valley, villages were few and far between.
Our journey through the heart of Kumaon, although it took place towards the end of April, when the weather was getting rather too warm, was most interesting. The country is charming, hilly and well-wooded, with wonderfully fertile valleys and very neat and well-kept cottages. The more I enjoyed this rich and attractive country, the more I regretted the Kumaoni inhabitants. Still, they have done their best to cultivate the land they live in. The villages and houses are of their own construction, and they are undoubtedly clever people; yet one cannot help feeling that perhaps another dose of Goorkha rule, from which they were relieved after the treaty of Segowlie, which terminated the Goorkha War of 1814-15-16, would do them a world of good. I speak feelingly.
Most delightfully were we entertained on our way, and I myself more than once by Mr. Norman Troup and Captain Troup at their estate of Kousanie. Mr. Troup probably knows more of the Garhwal shikar valleys than any sportsman of the present time. He and his brother, an old Mutiny veteran, gave us much useful information. The march beyond their estate brings one to the house of Mr. Nash, who was equally kind, and has also for years travelled in Garhwal, and knows the Garhwali character well and appreciates it. Gwaldam, Mr. Nash’s estate, is situated high above the Pindari river, on the borders of Kumaon and Garhwal.
Once across the Pindari, one is in Garhwal and in another country. First it becomes immediately more mountainous, as it is on the southern slopes of the great Trissul-Nanda Devi group; and, further, it is inhabited by a different and much more simple people. But though much pleasanter, they are also less industrious. The Kumaoni undoubtedly likes bettering himself, but these people are very primitive. They do not wish to become better off, but are satisfied with a sufficiency of food and clothing, and indeed they must be very easily satisfied, for even in the highest villages they were very badly clothed, and nowhere did the people look fat and well-liking, and that, too, in a country where Italian or Tyrolese or Swiss peasants would make a fine living, and one on which the peasants of the Dauphiné Alps would look as a land flowing with milk and honey.
To any one who has seen Hunza, in comparing Garhwal to other parts of the Himalaya or Hindu Koosh, the thought of famine in this district seems foolish. But everything runs to waste, especially grass. Water-cuts seem hardly employed anywhere (this, of course, is on our itinerary, i.e. via Pindari, Pana, Ramini, and the Kuari Pass to Tapoban), and the coarsest grains only are grown. There is no industry and no forethought. This seems to be the character of the Garhwali peasant. But, beyond these characteristics, he is a pleasure to meet compared with the Kumaoni. Simple, pleasant mountain folk, strong and enduring, though not of particularly good build or physique, their only drawback seemed to me that they were rather bigoted Hindus compared to Nepalese peasants.
Altogether during the time I was in Garhwal I must have employed, for longer or shorter terms, over 1500 hillmen. They were mostly of Rajput extraction, but we had all castes, from Brahmans to the menial classes. Some were very full of ceremonial. One even went to the extent of washing the sticks he proposed to cook with before he lit the fire. They improved very much on acquaintance. Many of our permanent Beldars (men engaged for a term, as casual porters are engaged by the stage) turned out very well. As mountaineers, to help in a high climbing expedition, few are of much use. This is due, not to want of capacity by any means, but to want of clothing and food. Their clothes are wretched; their blankets worse. They are in fact generally clothed in little more than a blanket, which does for day and night covering, and their legs and feet are bare. Their accustomed food is low forms of grain, a little milk, and less meat. In their own country, when they are out after game, or even working for their own benefit, they are accustomed to very difficult ground. One most extraordinary trait is that they appear to have no sporting instincts. Even men posing as shikaris were actually useless, though they could show the ground. In fact, we only met one man, Ram Sing by name, who could be classed with a third-rate Gilgit shikari or a second-rate Kashmiri. Their own methods of shikar are dreadful. They are wholesale poachers of the most hopeless kind. They often kill the tahr in winter in the following fashion. The tahr is a goat with a fine body and a poor head, but a wonderful climber. He lives in even more precipitous ground than the markhor of the west Their method of killing him is as follows: Having driven the tahr into deep nullahs, with most precipitous sides, out of which there are certain well-known tahr runs, they proceed to cover these runs where the ground is most difficult with mats made of split bamboo, which have been previously well drenched in water. The result is, the mats freeze and become as slippery as glass. Then they frighten the herd and drive them over these mats, with the result that they are precipitated from the cliffs, and that the Garhwali picks up the remains — perhaps twelve baskets full. However, we cannot blame them for their primitive methods; any people who are hungry would do the same, especially as every available domestic goat or sheep is kept in Upper Garhwal for the salt and borax trade. They are, in fact, the transport animals of the district.
Kumaon and Garhwal have besides their own proper inhabitants a large class of so-called Bhutias, almost nomads (who are described in Mr. Sherring’s book). They all have villages, in which they live during the summer months, but during the winter and often in the summer they trade backwards and forwards between Thibet proper and the Plains. They are true Bhutias only in so far that they are of Thibetan extraction, and are probably a mixed race. They are curiously particular in caste matters in some ways and curiously lax in others. That they should have any caste prejudices at all is an anomaly, and only shows the extent to which they have become mixed with the Garhwalis, Kumaonis, and others with whom they have been brought in contact. The primitive words of their language, by which I mean such words as “fire, water,” are equally understood from Baltistan to Bhotan by all people of Bhutia extraction, and both the Maggar and Gurung Goorkha riflemen of my regiment who were with me could obtain what they wanted, where Hindustani was not understood, by using detached words of their own languages, though without constructing a sentence.
The group of the Himalaya comprised by the mountains of Trissul and Nanda Devi, with their numerous supporters, is almost unrivalled in many ways; in fact, this section of the Himalaya is, as Dr. Longstaff puts it, gigantically Alpine in character, with its prodigious mountains and the green and cultivated valleys and forest-clad slopes. There is nothing quite the same in the west, where the valleys are green and the forest splendid. There the mountain scale is smaller. But here on the actual slopes of the great mountains one passes through all phases. It is Alpine, but crushed together and confined; infinitely deeper and infinitely steeper, but not so livable in by any means. Once across the Kuari Pass, one arrives at a transition stage, and half-a-dozen marches farther up the Dhaoli river one is in Thibet almost, or perhaps in the Karakoram, as far as scenery goes. I infinitely prefer the forest surroundings of the prodigious Trissul scenery to the desolation of the further ranges, wonderful though the ice-scape may be, though even then the Central Himalaya has no ice-scape to compare to the great glacier scenery of the Karakoram or Hindu Koosh.
Mr. Mumm’s delightful book on our journey in Garhwal, entitled Five Months in the Himalaya[1] gives an excellent account of our journey up to Tapoban, though, after all, this is a well-known track to many sportsmen. Our party consisted of Mr. A. L. Mumm, Dr. T. G. Longstaff, our guides the brothers Brocherel, Moritz Inderbinnen, and myself.
The view of the Kuari Pass is quite remarkable. It is impossible in the Himalaya to say that any peak or pass has an unrivalled view; all that one can hope for is to have the power of really understanding them. Still, one can say with certainty that the view from the Kuari is very hard to beat. The great trouble in the old days of travel was that sportsmen and explorers had to trust to paint and pencil to illustrate their books. General MʻIntyre’s delightful book on sport, The Hindu Kôh, is entirely illustrated by sketches which really convey very little of the true character of the mountains; this is impossible without the help of photography. Such a panorama as the view from the Kuari in Mr. Mumm’s book gives a far better notion of the vastness and structure of the range than any casual drawing can possibly do.
It is very hard, when travelling in the valleys in this region, to take in the scale. In the west, in the great valleys of the Indus, or in Gilgit, the whole country is on a tremendous scale. In places the main valleys open out into great wide spaces, only to be closed in again by immense buttresses. The rivers are large. There is room for the formation of vast glaciers. When marching, one finds that a large shoulder of a mountain, which appeared quite near in the morning, is apparently just as far away at mid-day. But in Garhwal it is otherwise. Garhwal is, like the Gilgit district, crushed into half the space structurally, but with the lower slopes, or rather the slopes affected by the annual rainfall and many snowfalls, well clothed in forest and undergrowth. Take, for instance, the Rishi Valley, up which one has to pass to attack Mount Trissul and the north side of Mount Nanda Devi. Anything more precipitous or broken cannot be imagined. The scale is Himalayan only (by which I mean, of course, the great system of Himalaya and Hindu Koosh). It is a hopeless valley. In the Hindu Koosh it would be the abomination of desolation. Here, wherever a tree can grow, there is one. The birch forest is very fine, and in places there is quite a respectable amount of fir and pine. Even on the one or two tiny alps there is sufficient grass to make it worth while driving flocks on to them for short periods. For those who are fond of sport, mixed with rock-climbing of a very high order, the Rishi would be an excellent headquarters for tahr shooting, and there are also a great number of small burhel, though large heads appear to be very few and far between. There are two good routes into the Rishi, suitable for local porters — one by Tolma via Tolma Kharakh, and one from the Dunagiri Valley descending direct on to Dibrugheta, the last alp in the valley.
Our first attempt to get into the Rishi was foiled by the unusual amount of snow for the time of year (May 12th), and therefore we spent the time in various pleasant ways in the Dunagiri Valley and near it for at least a fortnight. During our wanderings and explorations of the great Bagini glacier, which fills up the head of the Dunagiri Valley, we were struck with the interest of a journey across what was evidently a possible pass, east of Mount Dunagiri itself (23,184 feet). We came to the conclusion that if we could find our way over this pass and examine the whole basin of the Upper Rishi, the expedition would not only be of great topographical interest, but also a great assistance to our attack on Trissul itself, and would possibly enable us to make a preliminary reconnaissance of Nanda Devi. This was a little too ambitious. Still we determined to do our best. It was apparent that no passengers could be taken — that is to say, that no one, unless he could carry his share of the necessary ten days’ outfit, could go, and unfortunately for the two amateurs, Dr. Longstaff and myself, local men could not be taken. We had our special outfits, the best of clothing, sleeping-bags, thermos bottles and boots, and light tents, and even then we all suffered considerably from cold. How could the wretchedly-clad local man be expected to lie out at 18,000 feet in the snow on May the 20th, and, even if he survived, be worth anything the next day? I have on many occasions seen natives sleep in the snow with the one blanket that they carried with them as their only coverlet, but not at such a height nor so early in the year. I have also been on expeditions in which our numerous coolies slept packed together in a tent with no more cover, and lived on the lightest food; but such exposure would take it out of the strongest and best-nourished man. I believe there have been several criticisms on the local men by Europeans and other travellers, who have been hurt and disappointed because the natives failed them after several days of this sort of thing, although, as they said, “we provided them with tents.” In fact when I creep into my Mummery tent and take my boots off and pull on a pair of special long sleeping-socks over my dry stockings, and put on a dry shirt and pull down my Balaclava cap, and then creep into my swan’s-down sleeping-bag, and finally have a nice hot pull out of my thermos bottle, I have often wondered myself why the coolies should complain of feeling unwell in the morning.
Anyhow, on this occasion we had to carry everything for ourselves – everything meaning food, clothing, sleeping-bags, rifles, and cartridges, all for ten days, also crampons. Mr. Mumm has given a very good description of the crossing of the Bagini Pass, but he did not, I think, quite sufficiently explain to mountaineers how very favourable the snow conditions may be in the Nanda Devi-Trissul group quite early in what would be known in Europe as the climbing season. Although the snow on the flat got very soft after the sun had been on it for some time, yet on the mountain-side it was never treacherous, and during our whole eight days’ trip we never heard or saw a snow avalanche of anything more than an insignificant size. The first day we camped under the extraordinary peak of Changabang (at a height of 18,000 feet approximately). A wonderful peak in every way, with vast precipices falling a sheer 5000 feet down to our branch of the Bagini, one curiously pink in colour. We arrived at our camp at about 10.30, and as it was quite evident that we could not, with our loads, hope to cross over the pass that day, we remained under the shade of a rock, behaving like dogs, who first bake in the sun and then cool in the shade. The heat of the sun, or rather its radiated heat from the snow, was awful, and the cold under the rock very sharp; so we spent the whole day going backwards and forwards till the sun sank, when the cold hit us like a box on the ear. The following morning at about 4.30 we were ready to start. What a blessing is a thermos bottle! Undoubtedly the thermos is one nail in the coffin of the great mountains. We had filled ours with hot cocoa the evening before, and notwithstanding the very low night temperature, we each had a hot drink in the morning. It would have been most trying to have started without something warm; even as it was, the height and the cold sucked the heat out of us to such an extent that we all had to stop after about an hour and a half’s walking over easy snow slopes, which were in absolutely perfect condition, to try and get some circulation back into our toes. Even the Brocherels suffered, but the Goorkhas, who had only ordinary ammunition boots and socks, were very cold, and it was here that Subadar Karbir Burathoki began his frost-bites. There had been no time to boot the Goorkhas sufficiently well, and the ammunition boot (price about seven shillings), though it is passably good for military purposes, gives nowhere near enough protection for high mountaineering. The boot, in some form, is a necessity. All forms of native foot-gear, excellently adapted as they are for shikar purposes, are quite inadequate for mountaineering. The Kashmiri grass shoe is excellent in its way, but I have worn out as many as three pairs in one day, over rocky and stony ground, and it is distinctly bad in steep, hard snow, and on ice quite useless. The “shavel” of Garhwal is far worse, though probably it gives a still better hold on rock even than the grass shoe.
The final rise to our pass was a terrible fag, and also farther than we expected. Snow lay on an ice foundation at an alarming angle, but it was luckily in perfect order, and there was no danger. Still, the final slopes were very icy and steep, and required considerable step-cutting by the Brocherels. Finally, eight very blown men arrived on the knife-edge pass. The ridge we were on connects Dunagiri with Changabang, and is on the Rishi side distinctly sensational. The scale is immense, and the general elevation great, the pass being approximately 20,100 feet. I must say, for a blown and heavily-laden man, the descent was not encouraging. On our left, ice slopes at a steep angle; on our right, A.P.[2] cliffs. The line of descent lay between the two. Henri Brocherel was let down on two hundred feet of rope, Alexis and myself paying him out; he reported “all well,” but said pitons must be fixed lower down. So down he went again and fixed them, taking light cord with him. He was followed by Longstaff, and then Dhanlal, who was very heavily weighted, his great fishing-creel basket (an excellent shape for carrying purposes, by the way) being topped by a large sack of “satu” — baked and powdered barley — an excellent iron ration. It was neatly cleared off his back by a falling stone just as he was in the worst part of the descent. Budhichand, who left just before me, said to me, with that delightful directness which is the chief charm one experiences in dealing with Goorkhas, “Are you in a funk?” I said, “Yes, a little, but we have got to go.” He replied, “I am too, rather.” But he went down like a bird. I was rather comforted, as my load was not so heavy as that of Alexis or as those carried by the Goorkhas, but when my turn came Alexis said to me, “Monsieur Bruce, your load is lighter than mine; I am coming down last, please take mine.” I immediately answered, “With pleasure”; my real meaning being, “D — n your eyes. I thought you would not have remembered.” It was very cold, but I was drenched by the time I got to the little crack in which the party had hidden themselves. The descent was very steep in places, with verglas-covered rocks, and when one is carrying a load of at least 50 lbs., and sometimes has to trust to fixed ropes, one is apt to get warm, not to speak of the extra warmth of funk produced by a falling stone taking one’s paggri neatly off one’s head.
Alexis Brocherel’s final descent was very interesting. He brought all his ropes with him, and was warmly congratulated by every one. In fact, his performance, quite new to the Goorkhas, has not been forgotten by them. However, he treated it as nothing, though I think in his own heart he was quite pleased with himself. From here down to our final bivouac at the head of the Arhamani glacier the road was not difficult, though it consisted of very steep and rather soft snow slopes. Towards the end we glissaded our loads and did sitting glissades after them.
That night I prefer to forget. I always get very hot, and my clothing was, to say the least of it, damp. We had forgotten one of the most necessary things of all for travelling in the Himalaya, that is, thin mackintosh sheets for the tents; and the consequence was that camping early before the snow was properly frozen, we were wet all night, and I fell ill with what is known as mountain sickness, but is really a mixture of many forms of trials. But it was our own fault for being so foolish as to forget such a simple precaution, especially as we should have given them to other people to carry. Our further journey into the Rishi was a joy, toilsome as it was. I have seldom spent more strenuous days, or more delightful ones. We were in a country which possibly had never been seen by human beings, or if seen, only by Graham’s party. The scenery was of the very highest Alpine order, and we had the real pleasure of not knowing how in the earth we were going to find our way out. We had, in fact, everything that makes a mountain expedition enjoyable, the one drawback being the heavy loads we carried. For all one’s appreciation of fine scenery, of nature in general, and of nice little questions in rock-climbing in particular, one’s pleasure is seriously marred by 40 lbs. of kit on one’s back. I improved vastly in comfort towards the evening, and though distinctly seedy for most of the day, was by twelve o’clock quite able to sit up and take a little nourishment.
We had quite an exciting little rock-climb down a very interesting gorge in our descent. We were let down with the loads on a double rope down one particularly steep pitch. Dr. Longstaff arriving last I omitted to unknot the rope before sending it up, the consequence being that it stuck in the rocks for some time. I see by the Indian papers this year that Dr. Longstaff is mentioned as a medical missionary travelling in the Himalaya. He would certainly have been repudiated by all known Missionary Societies, if their governing bodies had been standing at the exact spot where I was at that moment. I was very much hurt myself by his remarks.
The next days were days of toil, only broken by Dr. Longstaff’s really remarkable performance with a herd of burhel at forty yards; he got two. I never laugh, I take these things too seriously, but he would have had an awful time if I had sent him back to recruit’s parade to pass his musketry. It only showed what casualties result from unaimed fire; however, we ate his bag for the rest of the day as hard as we could, and stored all the remainder, though I had visions of plenty of smoked meat to ration us up Trissul on our regular campaign.
After the continual and awful fag of crossing the lower slopes of the Rishi, it was a perfect blessing to see the alp of Dibrugheta below us on the afternoon of the 28th. We spent a very pleasant but damp evening. Next day an easy march brought us to Dibrugheta, and the following day a very laborious climb over a small peak about 15,800 feet high ended in a very steep snow descent, an excellent glissade, and a terrible five hours’ struggle down the Tolma Valley through thick jungle, during which every one took his own line, to our own camp at Surai Tota. I cannot say that I enjoyed this day, as an abscess was forming on my knee-cap, and I had great difficulty in arriving at all.
During the following fortnight I was completely laid up with this abscess, and was unable to join in the party’s most successful attack on Trissul. They had a trying time getting in, as the last mile and a half of the track leading into the Rishi runs along the face of very steep cliffs, and takes the form of a very narrow ledge which crosses the face of these cliffs with considerable ascents and descents. When this narrow track is obliterated with snow frozen hard, it can be easily understood that the difficulty of taking a heavily laden train across is greatly increased. Even when I crossed with about ten coolies we had quite a scramble, and one of my coolies slipped out of his steps in crossing a gully and went down some 50 feet, luckily at one of the few places where such a slip would not mean going over a precipice. Travelling was made considerably more difficult by the fact that the local “shavel” has a way of polishing and rounding off snow steps so as to make them very treacherous. I joined the party for a short time, too late for the ascent, but was not fit for any hard work. However, the high air and the considerable exercise, which any kind of travel through the Rishi Valley involves, put me right by the time we all got back for the second time to Sural Tota.
The ascent of Trissul does not present actual technical mountaineering difficulties, but the party had had several days’ very hard work, not only in moving camps up the Trissul glacier, but in being obliged to lie up during a “tourment” at 20,000 feet, and any one who has had a like experience knows that takes a good deal of the bloom off one’s condition. The English term “stamina” does not half as well describe the most important quality required for high mountaineering as the French word résistance — résistance not only to hard work, but to cold nights and high elevations and little food. That is what is required, and I think the amount of résistance that they showed was most creditable to their constitutions.
After the storm was partially over, they descended to recover their strength to the plateau on which they had been encamped, at an elevation of 15,800 feet, and from there it was decided that four of the party — Dr. Longstaff, the two Brocherels, and Subadar Karbir Burathoki — should return with the remainder of the Goorkhas to carry their camp and all the remaining supplies to a higher and more suitable level, and make one more attempt to reach the summit, the Goorkhas retiring to the base camp as the food was exhausted. They finally camped at about 16,800 feet, and from that comparatively low elevation reached the top and returned in a single day. It must have been a terrible grind, but was a great triumph, and we felt further that whatever might happen during the rest of our trip our expedition had not been in vain.
I believe that afterwards another exploring mountaineer, with many successes to his name, was rather anxious about the last 10 feet of Trissul — he was jealous of that last 10 feet; he wanted it for himself. There was once upon a time a vulgar and popular comic song with the refrain —
Cut me off a yard or two,
I’ll tell you when to stop.
All I want is a little bit off the top!
May I recommend the excellent mountaineering moral conveyed in this rhyme to the delectation of the before-mentioned mountaineer?
A couple of days after our return to the base at Sural Tota we started off hopefully for the reconnaissance of our second objective, Kamet, and its neighbouring glaciers. However, the rainy season was much nearer than we had expected, and our calculations of being beyond bad weather at midsummer, when once past the Nanda Devi-Trissul group, were not verified. For the first part of our journey our road led via the main Niti Pass trade route, past the villages of Malari and Niti, where we branched off up the Raikana Valley.
At our camp near Niti I saw rather an amusing incident. A Bhutia was returning to his village, having lunched at Niti, not wisely but much too well (for the Bhutias brew and drink a rough spirit in considerable quantities). He had great difficulty in getting along the path, and fell off it several times. Coming to a small stream spanned by a narrow bridge, be tried to walk across but could not manage it, till he finally took it at a canter on all-fours! The Goorkha orderlies and myself were much amused, and watched his further progress with interest, till he finally disappeared round a corner and we forgot him. In a minute or two, however, some one shouted out, “He’s going to cross the bridge to Gumsali village; be will never do it.” So two of the Goorkhas set off, but only just caught him in time, as he was approaching the bridge, which was very narrow, with a steep and still narrower ascent to it, and the Dhaoli, a roaring torrent, foaming below. As before, he was going to cross on all-fours, but the two hoisted him across and left him in safety.
For a time all went well, and we made a most interesting reconnaissance at the head of the Rai Kana glacier; but Kamet, from that direction, would want an expedition in itself. We visited a pass at the head of the Rai Kana glacier, approximately 20,800 feet high, but the approach to Kamet by the adjoining ridge would probably have taken five or six days of the hardest climbing for loaded men, and we should have had again to depend on ourselves. Beyond a certain point it would have been impossible to take the local Bhutias, clothed and booted as they are, and without any firing. So that project had to be given up, and we returned again.
Kamet could not be tackled from this side, so we determined to cross into the Badrinath Valley of the Alaknanda river, with a light camp, sending our main camp on ahead to meet us. We had a most delightful expedition over the Bhyundar Pass, which was originally crossed by Colonel Smyth in 1862.
When once we had passed the watershed between the Dhaoli and the Alaknanda, we found ourselves once more in the before-mentioned mixture of alps and Switzerland, but on what a scale! The pass, or rather the passes (for one really has to cross two passes, with a charming camp at an alp between the two), are quite easy to negotiate and not very high — the true Bhyundar 16,500, and the col beyond, 14,700 feet approximately. From the top of the second pass one has a most striking view; indeed it appealed to me even more than the wonderful 9000 feet face of Hathi Parbat as seen from our half-way camp or below the Bhyundar. The descent to Hanuman Chetti on the Alaknanda is almost sensational in its steepness, the cliff and forest scenery quite out of the common, while the whole front of the picture is filled by the beautiful pinnacle of Nila Kanta (21,700 feet).
We spent a more or less quiet day at the temple of Badrinath, where I must say I found it distinctly pathetic to see the not very attractive pilgrims of all ages and classes — even old women in baskets, carried by a single porter — from all parts of India. There is a story that in old days these porters would contract to carry the old people up, being paid beforehand, and, on arrival at a convenient cliff, tip them over and return for another load. Even now, when there is a Government mule-track to Badrinath, there are plenty of convenient cliffs. In old days the road must have been very bad. We were not, I imagine, very attractive ourselves, as we were burnt black by the sun, and had grown beards; so much so, that an employ of the temple, who could speak English, came up and asked if we had not come from Africa. I said, “No, certainly not; but why?” “Because you have such beards and are so dark,” he replied. Shortly after we reached our next camp, Mana, which was to be our base, I received a much more severe shock more or less as related by Mr. Mumm, but worse, far worse than his account. Two days after our arrival a middle-aged young lady sent a message to me that ever since she had seen me on the day of our arrival she had been ill. I was very much hurt, I allow; during the course of a short but interesting career, no such snub had ever been administered to my self-respect. I said, “But can’t I do anything?” She said, “Yes; wash your face and let me have the water.” So we got hot water and soap, and she sat on a rock to see that there was no deception. The water, or rather the decoction, was then put into a long tumbler, and she then and there drank it all! What is more, the next day she sent word that she was quite cured. It is a blessing to have been of some use it this world anyhow. Evidently I’ve got a more serviceable face than I thought.
Our intended exploration to Kamet from this side came to a rapid and unfortunate end. Dr. Longstaff made a sporting reconnaissance of the Mana Pass, but although the whole country is crammed with the most tremendous and virtually unknown glaciers and mountains, these were not for us. The weather absolutely collapsed, and after our return from our local wanderings we remained in our tents for four days, or almost in them, for it hardly stopped raining at all. After a council of war it was decided that Mumm and myself should start for Kashmir, and that Longstaff should continue some explorations that he wished to make on the south side of Trissul. He, I believe, had a most successful time and a very lucky one, for although our journey back was not exactly dry, still the monsoon of that year was a very light one; so much so, that on our arrival — well into August — in Kumaon, people, especially those interested in tea, were complaining of a shortage of water, and fearing a failure of crops in consequence.
Finally, Garhwal-cum-Kumaon has not been half explored. It would require any number of mountaineering trips to do so properly. Its lower glaciers, or rather the glaciers on the southern face of the great group Trissul-Nanda-Devi-Nandakot, are but little known, with the exception of the Pindari; while on the northern side the great basin below Nanda Devi has yet to be reached. The Bagini, as Mr. Mumm relates, would require a whole season, and a party who were content with a modicum of exploring and a maximum of climbing would find all they could do in many seasons in the Rishi and Dunagiri plus Bagini valleys, especially as they could vary their work with tahr and burhel shooting. North come the groups topped by the Ghori Parbat and Hathi Parbat peaks, and the Kosa glacier basin and many other glaciers of greater and less size, connecting north with the main chain and the Kamet group, and forming a bewildering maze of mountains.
I am inclined to think that from early September to October 15th would be the best time for the exploration of Kamet; but it would require undivided attention, and this is one of the reasons that we failed in that direction — on my part an unregretted failure, as we travelled over and saw so much wonderful country.