MOUNTAINEERING IN BALTISTAN.*
DR. WORKMAN and his wife deserve to be reckoned among the most indefatigable of modern mountain explorers. They have done more than anybody else to increase our knowledge of the .Karakoram, that great range which forms a western extension of the Himalaya proper and contains the second highest mountain in the world. Season after season they return to the task with amazing perseverance, and several sections of the range have been mapped out and explored by their unaided efforts. The present volume is an account of two expeditions in that part of the system which lies north of the Indus, between Gilgit on the west and the Mustagh Pass on the east, or, to define it orographically, which comprises the basins of the Chogo Lungma and the Hoh Lumba glaciers. Pew Europeans have penetrated further than Shigar, and none, it may safely be said, further than the foot of the two glaciers. It is a. district of great interest to the mountaineer, for though it contains no peak of the first order, it affords a wonderful view-ground of the peculiarities of the Himalayan glacial system. The first summer the travellers devoted themselves to a thorough exploration of the great Chogo Lungma glacier. Next year they explored its twin glacier, the Hoh Lumba, and returning to the head of the first-named, ascended three mountains of over twenty-one thousand feet. These are remarkable performances, well worthy of a permanent record. The method adopted is perhaps a little unfortunate, for a joint narrative is a difficult form, and it means the ruthless expulsion of all individuality from the style. The writing is correct enough, but wholly with- out any sort of charm, and this chronicle of continual success leaves an impression of self-satisfaction which is probably due only to the method employed. It is not a book to read for any literary quality, but only for the interest of the facts.
Himalayan mountaineering is a very different business from any other. To get to the base of the mountains means a journey of miles up immense glaciers, and tents pitched night afterdaight on the snow. The traveller is thirty or forty miles from the nearest village, and has to bring everything with him,—provisions, fuel, even stones for a fireplace. A storm in the foothills is a tempest at an altitude of between sixteen * Ice-Bound Heights of the Mastayh : an Account of Tao Seasons of Pioneer Exploration and nigh Climbing in the Baltistan Brmaloya. By Fanny Bullock Workman and W. IL Workman, M.D. London: A. Constable and Co. [21..
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and twenty thousand feet, and the climber may be confined for dive to the exiguous comforts of his tent. The extremes oC heat and cold have to be endured, often within twenty-four hours. At night the thermometer will fall to the neighbour- bood of zero. By day it may be as high as 204° Fehr. in the sun, and what this means in a waste of fresh snow at a great altitude any mountaineer can guess. The glare becomes blinding, and the skin is peeled and blistered almost beyond endurance. There is no shade anywhere, and man has not yet invented an effective device to preserve his complexion. The authors declare that in a bicycle journey of fourteen thousand miles in the plains of India, where the temperature in the shade was often above 100° Fehr., their skins never suffered from the sun, while in the Himalaya their faces were so burned that all the nerves of the head suffered in sympathy. Add to these discomforts the fact that a day's expedition is usually inordinately long, and that instead of returning as the Swiss climber does to a hot bath and a good dinner, the authors had nothing but a tent set up on the snow, where the most rudimentary meal was bard to prepare. The only thing which could mitigate these hardships would be a capable staff of servants, and unfortunately the Himalayan coolie is as bad as may be. The most that the authors can say for the Balti is that he is not so hopeless as the Sikkim variety. Above the snow-line he is absolutely untrustworthy. Re knows nothing of snowcraft ; though born and bred in high latitudes, he suffers more readily from mountain-sickness than most people; he is easily frightened, and when he once becomes mutinous no argument will induce him to budge a step. He is also very bad at taking care of himself, for he loses his glasses and gets snow-blindness, and he is so lazy that rather than take the trouble of pitching a tent he will spend the night in the snow. This is the authors' report on the Kashmir coolie, and it is a warning to other travellers not to hope for too much from local talent. They had two Italian guides with them, and two Gurkhas, who proved useful. In future Himalayan work the Gurkhas will probably prove the only native guides of any value.
People who are willing to face hardships such as we have chronicled deserve success, and Dr. and Mrs. Workman had a full share of it. They explored the Chogo glacier from A.randu, where it ends, to the col, twenty thousand feet high, thirty miles off to the west, where it has its source. This great glacier is retreating, for Colonel Godwin Austen forty years ago reported that its ice was encroaching on the Arandu terrace, and now its tongue is more than a thousand feet west of the cultivated land. It has no terminal moraine, but, "shelving away to a thin edge, dies out like a spent wave almost imperceptibly on the river-bed." In the profound solitudes at its head the travellers saw no living thing except one lonely chough. Such a journey has dangers as well as hardships, for they narrowly escaped being overwhelmed in a monster avalanche caused by the whole cornice of a mountain breaking loose. In exploring a co/ at the head of one of the tributary glaciers they had to make the descent of a steep ice- slope under the full glare of the sun, with the prospect of falling two thousand feet if they slipped. They only reached camp after twelve hours of continuous toil. Most of the cols could not be crossed, for besides being heavily corniced, they descended in precipices on the other side, and the informa- tion on this point which the authors give will be of great use to later explorers. To most readers the records of ascents made will be more interesting than those of glacier exploration. In Himalayan climbing rock--gymnastics of the kind which are to be found on the Chamonix aiguilles are of course impossible. The scale is too vast for human powers. The only practicable mountains are those which allow of being "rushed" from a high camp, and this demands fairly easy going. The ascent of a peak of over twenty thousand feet is more difficult in Baltistan than in Ladakh or Tibet, for the snow-line is only about sixteen thousand feet, while in other parts it is as high as nineteen thousand. This means a great difference in the facilities for transport and making camp. The highest camp which the authors were able to make was at 19,358 feet, and they are of opinion that if camps are made much higher sleep will be found impossible and the health of a party will suffer seriously. If any of the greater giants are to be conquered, it looks as if they, too, will have to be "rushed,' and an ascent of seven thousand or eight thousand feet made in one effort. The authors reached the top of Mount Ohogo, 21,500 feet; and then pushed on to Mount Lungma, 22,568 feet, which gave Mrs. Bullock Work. man the record for a woman's ascent,—a record which she has since broken by a thousand feet. She remained on this peak, while her husband pushed on to a point on the side of Pyramid Peak, which is estimated at 23,394 feet,— the highest point reached during this expedition. They were favoured by perfect weather, but three such ascents in one day are a remarkable performance in any circumstances. Leaving the Chogo Lungma basin, they made a bold journey up a tributary glacier with the object of fetching a circuit to the north and returning by Gilgit. It was an arduous task to take fifty-five coolies, eight sheep, and twelve goats over a snow-range never before crossed. At the col they found a cornice which had to be tunnelled, and a steep ice slope beneath, down which the guides began to cut steps. Some of the coolies proved incapable of using them, and glissaded nine hundred feet in two minutes, scattering tents and provision-boxes to the four winds. Only the sheep and goats showed any moun- taineering capacity. The coolies had their revenge later, for they declined to go near Gilgit, apparently through fear of the warlike Hunza Nagar tribes. The travellers had accordingly to return by way of Astor, and console themselves with the view of Nanga Parbat, which is one of the great mountain spectacles of the world. The book is abundantly illustrated with excellent photo- graphs, and is well worth the attention of all who are interested in mountain travel. It is full of useful technical information, and on the various disputed questions of high. altitude climbing the view of the writers is in general well reasoned and convincing.
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