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which restores the balance by identifying one with the universe of which one's physical basis is so 
imperceptibly insignificant a fraction. 
From Biange one can see Mitre Peak across the glacier. Although a relatively minor summit (7,500 
metres), its architecture is incomparable. The name is inevitable. From this point of view the 
double horn could not fail to suggest the title (I had myself indulged in a little nomenclature, calling 
a mountain crowned by three square-cut towers of rock "Three Castles".) 
The next day a short march took me to Doksam. I was now almost at the head of the Baltoro glacier 
(15,518 feet). In nearly thirty miles of march I had only made four hundred feet of ascent. But here 
I was on the floor of a glacier at a height close to that of Mont Blanc. In front of me the glacier 
widened out; three major and several minor glaciers coalesced. I was irresistibly reminded of the 
Concordia Platz in the Oberland and named the plateau in affectionate remembrance. 
Once again the astounding variety of nature in this district impressed itself upon my mind. One 
would have said that it was theoretically impossible to combine so many types of mountain. The 
obvious exception to the otherwise invariable rule of practical inaccessibility was the Golden 
Throne, a minor point of which Conway claims to have climbed. I was very disgusted at the bad 
taste of some of the coolies who had been with him in saying that he had never been on the 
mountain at all, but turned back at the foot of the ice fall. How could such common creatures 
presume to decide a delicate scientific question of this sort? 
My camp at Doksam was pitched on the borders of a good-sized lake 
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between the mountains and the glacier, which at this point presents a wall of ice well over a 
thousand feet high. The position is consequently comparatively sheltered and in its way very 
agreeable. The presence of still water lends it the charm of utter peace, and the absence of the 
vermin which desecrate the crust of the earth so objectionably in other places is rendered even 
more agreeable by the holly courageous children who were my comrades and my friends. I went out 
reconnoitering for three hours in the middle of the day and got a very clear idea of the situation. A 
sudden snowstorm of a rather severe type swept the camp for an hour; but at four o'clock the 
weather again cleared. "Tomorrow to fresh woods an pastures new" --- except that there were 
neither woods nor pastures! "We were the first that ever burst into that silent sea" --- except that 
there wasn't any sea! The poets are really very thoughtless to leave their heir without an 
appropriate quotation! 
On the sixteenth of June I marched for a little over four hours where man had never yet trodden. It 
proved to be the easiest going yet. The eternal moraine was less in evidence; we were able to walk 
over admirable snow most of the way. Once more, though, I have to record a unique phenomenon 
totally out of keeping with the rest. At the corner of the Baltoro glacier and its northern affluent, 
the Chogo Lungma, as I named it, one has to cross a scree of pure white marble. Eckenstein, who 
arrived at this point in a snowstorm, found it very distressing. He told me that it was impossible to 
pick footholds; the entire surface was a blinding glare. Camp 8 (16,592 feet) is situated at the foot 
of a subsidiary spur descending from the ridge of which Chogo Ri is the climax. I was now in full 
view of the mountain itself, bar clouds; and, my first duty being to reconnoitre the mountain, I 
spent all day and all night watching it through my glasses, sketch-book in hand. The clouds shifted 
sufficiently to enable me to make a piecemeal picture, and I came to conclusion that while the 
south face, perhaps possible theoretically, meant a complicated climb with no half-way house, 
there should be no difficulty in walking up the snow slopes on the east-south-east to the snowy 
shoulder below the final rock pyramid. I sent back word accordingly and went on much encouraged. 
There was still not difficulty of any kind; the snow was excellent; but after three and a half hours, I 
decided to stop at Camp 9 (17,332 feet) directly under the south face of the mountain. Above this 
camp the glacier becomes comparatively steep and I did not wish to take a change of getting my 
coolies into trouble. They had amused me very much, by the way, at Camp 8 before starting, by 
coming and telling me that of course they didn't believe me when I said I would send them back as