the day a violent bitter wind was blowing. On the far side there is scarcely any descent, and Tuna, where the Tibet Mission spent the months of January, February and March, is 15,000 feet above sea-level.
The high lands of Tibet had now been reached. For hundreds of miles, to the borders of China on the east and Chinese Turkestan on the north, they consist of wide open plains at an altitude of between 14,000 and 15,000 feet, bounded by bare rounded ranges of hills rising a few thousand feet above them and breaking into rugged crags near the summits and capped with snow and ice when an altitude of 20,000 or more is attained. This is the general character of Tibet. Under some aspects it is bare and desolate and repellent. And the incessant, tearing winds chill both the spirit and the body. But Tibet has at least one good trait: the early mornings are usually calm. The sky is then of transparent, purest azure. The sun is warm. The snowy summits of some distant peaks are tinged with delicate pinks and primrose. And the heart of man warms even to Tibet.
That Tibet is a high plateau of this description is due to lack of rain. Rain falls in a deluge on the Indian side of the Himalaya, but little passes over the range into Tibet. As a consequence, the plateau has not been scoured out into deep valleys such as are found on the Indian side. And this want of rain means also sparseness of plant life; and paucity of plants means that animals are few. Its want of vegetation means also that the barren rocks and soil heat up under the sun and chill rapidly at night and so we find Tibet a land of furious winds.
A blue sky, constant sunshine, fierce winds, extremes of temperature, severe cold, a barren landscape—these are the features of Tibet; and the altitude gives to the European a constant sense of being only half his real self.
Under these conditions it is not surprising that plant life is almost imperceptible. You look out over those open plains and all appears like a desert. You cannot imagine how living things could subsist there. And yet you do see flocks of sheep and herds of yak. And as you observe more closely you do see scrub of some kind—a blade of grass here and another there—and in the summer even flowers: a little trumpet-shaped purple incarvillea, and a dwarf blue iris are common. And in winter the animals shuffle the surface and get at the roots of plants to subsist on them. Sheep are worn down to the bare bone, and a leg of mutton in winter affords only one helping at meals. Yet somehow they survive, in spite of the cold, of the winds, and of the scarcity of food, till the quick short summer season arrives when grass rapidly springs up.
Besides the domestic animals there is more wild life than one would suppose. Among the most common animals are mouse-hares or pikas, delightful little creatures about the size of a guinea-pig, quick and lively in their movements and darting from hole to hole with extreme rapidity. They live in colonies on the less stony part of the plain, or on grassy patches, when they can find them, and form burrows in which they store up quantities of seed during the summer, and hibernate in the winter. The Tibetan hare lives among the heaps of debris which accumulate at the foot of the hills. On the hills themselves the wild sheep, burrhel and ovis hodgsoni are found. The graceful little gazelle is often seen on the open plateau, and occasionally, in small parties, the kiang or wild ass. Wolves also there are and foxes, though they are not often seen. And, whether it is as a protection against beasts and birds of prey, or from some other reason, these animals are as a rule of some shade of buff or brown which resembles the plateau soil.
And this protective coloration is the more noticeable in bird life. Larks, wheatears and mountain finches are the commonest birds. The Tibetan skylark is almost identical with our own and its song may be heard over every patch of native cultivation. Five kinds of mountain-finch were seen by Hingston, the naturalist of the third Expedition. They were all fairly well protected by the colour of their plumage, which was of some shade of brown or fulvous, dull and inconspicuous. Sand-grouse of a pale fawn plumage which blends with the open ground live on the open stony plain and congregate in considerable flocks. On the slopes of the hills partridges are found, and in the ravines Alpine choughs, rock-doves and crag-martins. In and around the villages are sparrows and robins. Wollaston also saw a cuckoo on a telegraph wire.
The “enemy” in this bird and animal life is represented by wolves and foxes on the ground, and by eagles, buzzards and kestrels in the air. It is against these that birds and animals have to protect themselves by coloration. And the great lammergeier vultures are ever circling overhead on the look-out for any kill.
But among the “enemy” man is not to be reckoned. The Tibetans cannot be said never to take life, for meat is to be had in Tibet. But, in principle, they are against taking life and the wild animals are not hunted. Indeed, around some of the monasteries they are actually fed and have become so tame that wild sheep would come close up to the camp of the Expedition. This respect for animal life is inculcated by the Buddhist religion which the Tibetans profess. But other professors of Buddhism are not so particular as the Tibetans are. And perhaps a reason for the greater strictness of the Tibetans may be found in the fellow-feeling they must have with the animals in their hard struggle against the adverse elements. When all are struggling together against the cruel cold and desolating winds a man must have some compunction at taking the life of an animal.
The Tibetan climate has been described as nearly rainless and the plateau barren and arid. Yet Tibet is also remarkable for its lakes; and these are often of great beauty. Blueness is their chief characteristic—perhaps a reflection of the brilliant azure of the Tibetan sky. Where Howard Bury’s Expedition left the Lhasa road to strike off westwards towards Everest is one of the most lovely of these lakes, the Bam Tso, and of peculiar beauty because it reflects in its surface the snowy range of which the famous Chomolhari is the most prominent peak.
And these lakes and meres are the haunt in summer of innumerable wild-fowl. Bar-headed geese and redshanks nest here. And families of ruddy shelducks (the Brahminy duck of India, and to be seen by all who pass by the lake in St. James’s Park), and gargeney teal are seen swimming in the pools. Overhead fly sand-martins, brown-headed gulls, and common terns.
Such was the country which the Expedition had now to march through on its way, first to Khamba Dzong, and then Shekar and Tingri, passing occasionally through villages, for even at 15,000 feet barley and, sometimes, even wheat is grown, so warm is the sun in the short summer, but travelling for the most part through arid plains, divided from one another by ranges of hills, the outlying ridges running down from the Himalaya which was always in sight on their left.
It was while crossing one of these elevated ridges, at a height of 17,000 feet, that the first calamity to the Expedition occurred. Both Kellas and Raeburn had been ill at Phari. Kellas, indeed, had been too ill to ride, and it had been necessary to carry him in a litter. But he remained cheery and no one considered that there was anything critically serious with him. It came, therefore, as a dreadful shock to the party when a man came running up excitedly to Howard Bury and Wollaston, just as they had arrived at Khamba Dzong, and announced that Kellas had died suddenly on the way: his heart had given out through weakness while being carried over the pass.
This Scottish mountaineer had, in fact, with the pertinacity of his race, pursued his heart’s love till he had driven his poor body to death. He could not restrain himself. A peak was an irresistible lure. And he had worn himself out before he had even started on this Expedition. He was buried on the slopes of the hill to the south of Khamba Dzong within sight of Mount Everest. And we like to know that his eyes had last rested on the scenes of his triumphs. The mighty Pauhunri, Kanchenjhow and Chomiomo, all three of which he—and he only—had climbed, rose before them on his last day’s journey. So here, in the midst of the greatest mountains in the world, remains the body of this great lover of great mountains, while his ardent spirit works on, an inspiration to every other Himalayan climber.
Raeburn also was now seriously ill, and had to be sent back into Sikkim, and Wollaston had to accompany him. The climbing party was, therefore, reduced by half. Mallory and Bullock, neither of whom had been in the Himalaya before, alone remained. And Kcllas’s loss was the more serious because for some years he had been making a special study of the use of oxygen at high altitudes. And, at that time, many believed that it would only be by using oxygen that the summit of Mount Everest would ever be attained.
But Everest was now in sight at last, and the climbers pressed on to their goal. Across the great plain from Khamba Dzong, 100 miles