THE MOUNTAINS OF CASHMERE" THE mountaineer is very far from
having arrived at the sad position of Alexander when he lamented that there were no more worlds to invite his conquest. It is true that the Alpine Club has succeeded in reducing the Swiss mountains to a deplorable condition of flatness by their frequent ascents ; but what are the hills of Switzerland compared to the Great Andes of Ecquador, and what are even the Andes by the side of the yet more mighty giants of the Himalayas P The sadness of the mountaineer arises not from the fact that there are no peaks left for his exploration, but that there are so many doomed to remain unvisited by the foot of man, though generations succeed to generations of climbers. Some feeling of this kind may be traced all through Mr. Conway's book upon Climbing in the Himalayas. He seems to suffer from a surfeit of mountains, to be oppressed by the unlimited choice of maiden heights that surround him ; and as glory succeeds to glory, and summits tower above each other, he gives expression from time to time to a feeling of impatient, unsatisfied, and hopeless longing. So, on his way to the Hispar Valley, we find him writing :—" Grand and interest- ing as was this view, and topographically of special import. ance to me, I found it hard to fix my attention long upon it, for away to the North was another and a mightier mass of mountains, unexpected, unexplored, unnamed. Three giants there were amongst them, noble in form and fine in grouping. Senseless outlookers upon a world oil ice, monarchs of a Kingdom untravelled and unknown. Things wasting their splendour where there is none to admire, flashing back sun. rises and sunsets only upon their fellows sightless as them.
selves. Why this waste of magnificence?' I asked with some feeling of bitterness, and the clouds, for answer, closed it from my view." And this seems to us to be the key-note of Mr. Conway's book, which, with all its valuable information and its moving anecdote, yet leaves its reader unsatisfied. The author succeeds in inspiring us with some measure of his own yearning, that neither his brilliant descriptions nor the skilful sketches of Mr. McCormick can allay. And far from being grateful to him for what he has done in bringing the Himalayas nearer to us, we are ungraciously disposed to grumble that they are still so far away.
• Climbing in the Himalayas. By William M. Conway. London : Fisher
And 3 et it is evident that Mr. Conway and his friends accomplished a great deal. "We spent," he says in one place, "in all, eighty-four days on snow or glacier ; we traversed from end to end for the first time, the three longest known glaciers in the world outside the Polar regions; and we climbed to the top of a peak approximately 23,000 ft. high." And the results of their labours are to be found in the present volume, which contains a daily record of their operations, in sundry collections made in the interest of various sciences, in some thousand of photographs, in over three hundred admirable water-colours (the work of Mr. McCormick, the artist of the expedition), and in—what was of the greatest importance—a new map. Unfortunately, the new map is not included in this edition, and the only map supplied is not of much assistance to the reader who wishes to follow Mr. Conway's route closely. But Mr. Conway's great success lay in the composition of his party. The perfect unanimity and good fellowship that prevailed amongst them from beginning to end of the expedition, are little less than extraordinary when it is remembered of what heterogenons elements they were composed, and under what trying conditions they had to make the best of each other. Perhaps, however, there is a natural affinity between all mountain people that enabled the Swiss guide, Mattias Zurbriggen, to preserve throughout a good understanding with the four Goorkhas who were enlisted as his assistants. As it was, Mr. Conway was singularly fortunate in the addition to the expedition of Lieutenant Brace and his Goorkha followers, who played almost as essential a part in the whole under- taking as the all-accomplished and indefatigable Swiss guide himself. The task that lay before them was one which might well daunt the courage of even the bravest men. The ascent of the Matterhorn is no easy matter, even with all the appliances that can be brought to bear upon it, with the full complement of well-trained guides, and over a path that is now well-known. Bat compared with the ascent of the Pioneer Peak, that of the Swiss mountain is only a picnic party. The whole world of rock, of ice, and snow, in the Himalayas is on a scale which dwarfs the Alpine ranges into insignificance. And their exploration had to be pursued hundreds of miles away from any centre of civilisation, and under atmospheric difficulties that in Switzerland are hardly felt. One may well wonder at the dauntless energy and endurance that carried the climber safely through a region where even the labour of lacing a boot reduced its wearer to a state of breathless exhaustion. The chief source of dis- comfort seems to have been the sun :—
"Mere existence at these altitudes was already work enough. While it was cold, or snowing, or night, we were comfortable enough as long as we were doing nothing. One can lie on one's back and not be able to realise by any conscious discomfort that one is not at sea-level. But let a single gleam of sunlight fall upon the tent, and all is changed. A headache probably appears upon the scene. In any case, one pants for breath if one moves ; and if one involuntarily catches one's breath in the act of doing
something, one instantly becomes dizzy The connection between heat, still air, and human discomfort at high altitudes is a close one, and calls for explanation. A climber is forced to take account of it. In attempting the ascent of a high peak, he should, if possible, approach it by a north and south valley, so as to win as much shade as possible, and then he should endeavour to climb by an exposed ridge rather than by gullies or snow-slopes, for then he will more probably avoid stagnant air. Finally, ho should work in bad weather and by night as much as possible, and should avoid a route which will expose his back to the sun for any considerable length of time."
And if he is successful in courting the cooler shade, he will be rewarded, as the author was, with the agonies of frost- bitten toes. Truly, the dilemma of choice is not a pleasant one. His description of the portion of the ascent of Pioneer Peak gives some idea of the climber's sensations. The party of five—the author, Lieutenant Bruce, Zurbriggen, and two of the Goorkhas—were roped together in two ropes, and every step had to be cut with the ice-axe.
" Our advance was necessarily slow, and the terrible heat which the burning sun poured upon our heads did not add to its rapidity. There was plenty of air upon the actual ridge, and now and again a puff would come down upon us. and quicken us into a little life ; but for the most part were in the midst od.uti utter aerial stagnation which mai'd dull the observing facultie: le intolerable. Such conditions Zurbriggen's axe making the long, heard the click I click! l; cally struggled from one to aonnogth, srtriding steps, dimly I mechani- cally tconsciolus .o a vast depth down below on the right, filled was *thintot.r tortured glacier and gaping crevasses of monstrous ,size. with Sometimes would picture the frail ice-steps giving way, and the whole party falling
down the precipitous elope. I asked myself upon which of the rocks projecting below should we meet with our final smash; and Ii nspected the schrunds for the one that might be our last not unwelcome resting-place. Then there would come a reaction, and for a moment the grandeur of the scenery would make itself felt."
In the course of their descent, Harkbir, one of the Goorkhas, slipped from the precarious foothold. Fortunately, the author and the Swiss to whom he was roped were able to hold firm, and their companion, swinging round on the rope, "like a weight at the end of a pendulum, came to rest spread- eagled against the icy face." The courage and obedience to discipline which makes the Goorkha one of the best soldiers in the world, were fully equal to the occasion. " He did not lose his axe or become flustered, but went quietly to work, and, after a time, cut a hole for one foot and another for the other; then he got on his legs and returned to the track." This may seem a very simple business ; but be it remembered that the party were clinging, like flies, to the ice-bound face of a wall of rock, and that below them stretched two thousand feet of the swiftest passage to annihilation.
One of the chief difficulties encountered by the author in his map-making was in the matter of nomenclature. Despite all his patient cross-examination, the natives could not be in-
duced to remember whether the separate peaks or passes possessed any names of their own, and the inquirer was con- tinually baffled by their habit of confusing rivers, mountains, and valleys under one common title. Persevering, however, in his pursuit of knowledge, the author was enabled not only to obtain a fair number of names, but also much his- torical and legendary information from the inhabitants of the mountain villages. Indeed, his account of the peoples of Cashmere is by no means the least interest- ing of the contents of his volume, for be possesses a rare faculty of observation. Did space allow, we would much like to quote as an illustration of this, the curious description that he gives of Hunza and its people. Of course, Mr. Conway's book only deals with a portion of the great Himalayan range, the Karakoram Mountains; and even of that portion the author was only able to traverse a comparatively small part. But his adventure will probably bring many other ardent climbers into the same field, who will profit not a little by the ex- perience which he lays before them here. Mr. Conway has a pleasant style, and his story is always eminently readable ; he is, however, rather disposed to be diffuse, and his book would have been none the worse for a little cutting down. Mr. McCormick's illustrations are excellent.
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