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Eckenstein and Knowles came up on the eleventh. Another fine day. I was still very ill; my 
temperature 39.4° Centigrade. I did not at all realize the cause at first, simple as it was. The true 
explanation was very far-fetched in the actual sense of the word. My symptoms became 
unmistakable before long and I had to admit that I was suffering from malaria. The hardships of the 
journey had removed my physiological protection and the bug stated to buzz about. I was thus the 
proud possessor of another world's record; the only man who had had malaria at over twenty 
thousand feet! Incidentally, I was also the only poet at that altitude. I have always been very 
amused at Shelley's boast that he had "trodden the glaciers of the Alps" --- the Mer de Glace and the 
Glacier des Boissons! But I was actually writing poetry in these camps. Better poetry. 
Like the man who committed suicide when he learnt that the was unable to move his upper jaw, I 
had been annoyed by reading somewhere that it was impossible to find a rime to "silver". I spent my 
spare time in thinking up all the most impossible words in the language, finding rimes for them --- 
good rimes, not mere assonances --- and introducing them into "Ascension Day" and "Pentecost". In 
that poem will therefore be found rimes for refuge, reverence, country, virgin, courtesan, 
Euripides, Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Aischulos, Sophocles, ARistobulos, Alcibiades, fortress, 
unfashionable, sandwich, perorate, silver, bishop (eight rimes for this word), Sidney (three rimes for 
this), maniac, Leviticus, Cornelius, Abra-Melin, Brahmacharya, Kismet, Winchester, Christ Church, 
worship, Chesterton, Srotápatti (two rimes to this), Balliol, and so on. 
I have mentioned hardships. It may be interesting to mention the nature of these. The first and 
greatest was malaise, which was mostly due to lack of food and exercise. The latter complaint 
seems rather ridiculous; but it is an absolute fact. One must not bring damp things into the tent; if 
one does, it practically destroys the efficacy of one's protection against cold. One must therefore 
stay cooped up in one's tent as long as the weather is bad. I was in charge of the kitchen and had to 
go out in all sorts of weather; but that was hardly exercise. I often found that by the time I had 
filled and lighted the stoves and got the snow melted, I could not stand the cold any longer. I had to 
rush back to my sleeping-bag and warm up while someone else prepared the food. 
{318} 
We kept warm with kangri, of a sort, when things got too bad. We had brought up a number of 
Japanese instras, but they would not burn; there was not enough oxygen. The cartridges could 
however be used if left loose in empty biscuit tins. For a similar reason pipe-smoking was 
impossible; the only way to do it was to relight the pipe from the flame of the candle at each puff. 
We had a few cigars and we could smoke these quite comfortably. (It appears that the altitude is 
not wholly responsible for this. At greater heights on Kangchenjunga I smoked my pipe as 
comfortably as at sealevel.) 
This same is true about food. We found it difficult to eat anything but what may be called delicacies 
from the standpoint of people in our position. I felt a certain distaste for food. I had to be 
"tempted" like an invalid or a fastidious child. It became obvious that Eckenstein's German army 
theories were inapplicable to Himalayan exploration. 
We suffered little from cold in the acute way, but rather from a chronic effect. The problem of cold 
has not been scientifically stated by any explorer so far as I know. It is thus: The normal 
temperature of the body is 37° centigrade. If therefore the temperature of the air is 30° one has to 
make up the difference by the heat disengaged by the combustion of food. If the temperature is 23° 
one requires theoretically twice as much food, if 15° three times as much, if 8° our times as much, 
if 1° five times as much, if -6° six times as much, if -13° seven times as much, if -30° eight times as 
much. There temperatures are very much less hot and less cold than those actually experienced. 
The maximum and minimum thermometers proved altogether unreliable; and the observations on 
the chart refer to more or less arbitrary times. Other thermometers showed temperatures of over 
40° and under 30° centigrade. Unfortunately, simple arithmetic is not the only consideration. The 
digestive apparatus is calculated for dealing with an amount of food corresponding to, I don't know 
what temperature, but we might say at a guess 1°. If the average temperature is less than this, it 
means that you have to eat more than you can digest; and that means a gradual accumulation of 
troubles.