185
As a result of these conditions, a first-rate avalanche may never reach the foot of the slope down 
which it starts; it may evaporate almost entirely en route. One of our photographs shows an 
avalanche actually in the process of falling. It would have overwhelmed the photographer under 
Alpine conditions. 
I must admit to a certain heaviness of heart in obeying my instructions and sending back the men. It 
was so obviously right to take them up the slopes to the shoulder and establish the camp at a point 
whence Chogo Ri could have been reached without question, given one fine day. But my orders 
were formal and I never thought of disobedience. Of course, if I had foreseen the volte-face of the 
weather, I might have decided otherwise. 
I was a little worried by the failure of Pfannl and Wessely to maintain the communications for which 
arrangements had been made. I could not see their party on the glacier below and wondered 
whether they had not broken loose. It was just the sort of thing that one might expect; to find that 
they had bolted up the south end of the mountain and spoilt the whole plan. They arrived, however, 
on the next day, the nineteenth, and on the twentieth Knowles and the doctor joined us. They 
arrived in a snowstorm which continued the whole day. It was the first of uninterruptedly bad 
weather. On the twenty-first the wind dropped, though the snow continued. It tried to clear up on 
the twenty-second; and the twenty-third was fine. But of course, nothing could be done in the 
absence of Eckenstein. On the twenty-fourth a blizzard begin. It was the most furious wind that I 
have ever known. A corner of my tent broke loose; and the only remedy was to sit on it the whole 
morning! The violence of the wind was indeed amazing. I had secured the side ropes of my tent by 
tying them round square kiltas and putting others on top. There was thus over one hundred pounds 
to 
{314} 
hold down each rope; but the wind made no bones about shifting them. The twenty-fifth was a dull 
doubtful day; and on the twenty-sixth the weather was rather worse. On the twenty-seventh it 
cleared up in the afternoon and Eckenstein arrived with fresh meat and bread. 
{315} 
39 
The twenty-eighth was fine and we held a durbar. It was decided that, Eckenstein being ill, Pfannl, 
Guillarmod and I should start up the mountain. Eckenstein voted for the doctor, qua doctor, in case 
of one of us being ill. It shows how easy he thought the slopes. 
Wessely was very offensive in his resentment at not being included in the party. It was an 
intolerably bad piece of sportsmanship. Pfannl tended to take his side, and the pair made so much 
unpleasantness that we were soon reduced to the expedient of getting them out of the way as much 
as possible. 
We got everything ready; but next morning the wind was so high that we could not start. Even while 
drinking our chocolate in the cooking tent, we nearly got frostbitten. After sunrise, the wind 
dropped; but it was too late to start. Eckenstein and Knowles were both ill, but the rest of us went 
on ski nearly to the pass at the top of the glacier. About four o'clock in the afternoon the wind 
started again and once again loosened my tent. This time snow came driving up the valley. 
We had a spare tent for the use of the few natives whom we kept with us. I had gone out to try to 
refix my tabernacle at sunset --- and there was a Balti out in the snow praying with his face towards 
Mecca! The religion of the Mohammedan, unlike that of the Christian, is positive. It is not based on 
fear, but on the actual sense of the relations of man and God. I laugh to think of the well-fed, idle 
and ignorant missionary at Shigar trying to convert men of this stamp. Their simplicity sees through 
Christian sophistication at a glance; and, their sense of ethics being outraged as well as their sense 
of reverence, it is easy to understand that the only converts from Mohammedanism are absolutely 
conscienceless scoundrels who wish to live on the scarcely camouflaged subsidies of missions.