Valley, where Colonel Younghusband's transport was attacked by rinderpest. He

has much to say of Chnmbi, the Tibetan valley which is on the direct road of our Mission to Gyangtse, and its strategical advantages. Some of Mr. Freshfield's companions, particularly Mr. Dover and the native surveyor, Rinsing, are on Colonel Younghusband's Staff. To those, therefore, who are interested in the Tibetan Mission, and wish to get a more exact idea of the country it is penetrating and the nature of the people to whom it is sent, this book may be recommended as a very faithful and instructive guide.

But the narrative has merits of its own quite apart from any topical interest. To all who have ever come under the glamour of high mountains there must be abundant fascina- tion in this record of a journey among the highest and most mysterious mountains in the world, mountains, too, which do not rise, like the Karakoram, from a bare upland plateau, but spring sheer from rich tropical glens and show every variety of climate and landscape on their slopes. But let Mr. Fresh- field tell us in his own words the nature of the journey :-

" [The traveller] passes from the zone of Sal forests, of tree ferns, bamboos, and orange groves, through an endless colonnade of tall-stemmed magnolias, oaks, and chestnut trees, fringed with delicate orchids and festooned by long convolvuluses, to the region of gigantic pines, junipers, firs, and larches. Down each ravine sparkles a brimming torrent, making the ferns and flowers dance

as it dashes past them The mountaineer pushes on by a track half buried between the red twisted stems of tree-rhodo- dendrons, hung with long waving lichens, until he emerges at last on open sky and the upper pastures—the alps of the Himalaya—fields of flowers, of gentians and edelweiss, of primulas and poppies, which blossom beneath the snow fields that encom- pass the ice-mailed and avalanche-fluted shoulders of the giants of the range."

Sir Joseph Hooker in 1854 explored the environs of Kangchenjunga, but till Mr. Freshfield no European had made the complete circuit of the mountain. The journey took the travellers into Nepal, a forbidden land to Europeans; but they had ingeniously calculated that if they were sent across the frontier, the nearest point would be on their projected route; and so it turned out. The highest point reached was the pass of the Jonsong La, just over 20,000 ft., for a heavy snow-storm made the attempt of any of_the great peaks impossible. " I am convinced," says Mr. Freshfield, "that the next party of my friends and comrades who are fortunate in their season, and run over flowers where we

waded in snowdrifts, will find our great pass a very ordinary affair. They will probably be able to reach heights of at least 24,000 feet with less labour than it cost us to gain 20,000 feet." To mountaineers the most fascinating part of Mr. Fresh- field's narrative is his contribution to the topography of the Eastern Himalaya. Kangchenjunga is the third highest

of the measured mountains of the world ; the Nepalese 29,002 ft. peak, which is usually called Mount Everest, being first, and Mount Godwin Austen, the IC of the Survey, in the Karakoram, coming second. So far the highest Himalayan peak which has been conquered is Kabru, a little to the south-west of Kangchenjunga, whose 24,000 odd feet seem to have been ascended by Mr. W. W. Graham. Mr. Fresh- field has some interesting speculations on the accessibility of Kangchenjunga. If it is possible at all, he thinks the way

will lie from the Kangbachen Valley, in Nepal, up the great glacier which descends from between the northern and western crests. The most serious obstacle to success in such lofty and little known snowfields is the way in which all the

shelves and slopes are raked by ice and rock batteries,—" the worst, because the least avoidable by human skill, of all

mountain risks." Granted, however, favourable weather and a careful preliminary study of the tracks of avalanches, Mr.

Freshfield thinks the ascent may yet be made. The climber must be prepared to spend at least two nights on the actual face. Either Alpine porters or specially trained Ghoorka mountaineers will be necessary, for transport is one of the most serious physical obstacles, more serious, Mr. Freshfield thinks, than the effects of altitude. He points out that training • Round Kangchenjunga: a Narrative of Mountain Travel and Exploration. By Douglas W. Frealifleld. London: Edward Arnold. [18s. net.]

justifies it :— At one point only in the journey, at Chunjerma, the traveller had a view of the greatest mountain of the range. Let us quote his own words :—

" Beneath the deep blue vault of heaven, the giant mountains of Nepal, stretched in a wide curve, extending all along the line of the northern horizon Some, the more distant, were tinged as with pale gold, others shone in silvery light. Wherever the nearer range dropped, fresh peaks and horns shot up over its unknown and untrodden passes. Below the bright belt of new- fallen snow on which I stood the great spires of the mountains were spread out, range beyond range, clothed in the brown and amber of autumnal woods and pastures, or the duller hues of pines and junipers. Lower still lay the tropical forests of the foothills, a fair broad carpet of perpetual green, broken here and there in the blue depths of the valleys by the flash of running waters, while far, far away to the south a vague sea of pale sunlight and diaphanous, rainbow-tinted haze indicated the position of the Plains of Bengal."

One of these Nepal mountains was Everest, a name bestowed on it by the first surveyors to commemorate the officer who was then head of the Indian Survey. Mr. Freshfield, following Chandra Das, believes that it has a native Tibetan Chomokankar," or Lord of Snows ; and he argues very rightly against christening any mountain, which is already named, by a European title. It is just possible that, after all, there may be a rival to Everest. Both it and Kang- chenjunga belong to the Outer Himalayas, and Mr. Fresh- field saw behind them some ranges of great height. There is also a persistent native belief that over the Tibetan frontier there are higher mountains than any in the outer range.

Mr. Freshfield's book should take rank as one of the classics of mountain travel. His pictures, whether of the snow wastes or the heavy tropical glens, are done with the insight and fidelity of a true artist and lover of Nature. Apart from the geographical work, which is of high value, the account of the population of the hill valleys, and local customs and beliefs, is fall of interest. We would note in conclusion a reference to frontier politics which, written before Colonel Young- husband's Mission was appointed, lays down the policy which " The position of the Indian Government seems technically clear. It can claim the fulfilment of the terms of the last treaty. They will be fulfilled as soon as we can convince the rulers of Lhasa and the Chinese Government that we are in earnest, but not before. To produce this conviction, we shall probably have to suggest that non-compliance may be followed by serious consequences, as for example the annexation by us of the Chumbi valley. It may at the same time be found expedient to warn the Tibetan Government that we shall only respect their independence so long as they preserve it intact themselves, and refrain from any attempt to grant exceptional or exclusive privileges to other powers."

MR. J. C. HORSLEY'S RECOLLECTIONS.*