quiries Colonel Burrard has obtained promises from
Germany and other nations to substitute “ Everest ” for
all names now in use.
Another point of great interest to geographers has
always been, whether there might not be similar but
higher mountains in the neighbourhood, yet not visible
from India. This question we were able to settle,
for the great peak has no rival, the country falling
steadily away to the banks of the Brahmaputra;
whether farther east or in the Kuan Luan Mountains
there is a mightier mountain, remains to be seen.
The wind was too bitter to stay long in our exposed
position, which, by the way, was the watershed between
the Ganges and Brahmaputra basins, so, leaving the
coolies to follow with the plane table at their own pace,
we hurried on to shelter and warmth. Our progress
over the open was rapid; for the ponies, likewise chilled
to the bone, went scampering and bucking over the
stony undulating slopes. Then we entered a gorge
the bottom of which the sun rarely reaches, and here
were obliged to carefully pick our way, as there was
no p a th ; for the ravine was nothing but a slit in the
mountains, and the bed full of rocks. Mile after mile
this continued, the road falling rapidly, until at dusk
we debouched on to the Dingri Plain, which Monsieur
Hue sixty years ago declared to be the home of the
unicorn. Kaju is built in an entirely different style
from the villages passed on the road from Gyantse. In
place of the pleasant little whitewashed houses with
their grassy lawns and rows of trees, we now find bare,
uninteresting blocks built of grey limestone, surrounded
with cattle-pens, and not a vestige of anything green to
relieve the monotony.
In this not too clean and decidedly odoriferous spot
we were compelled to stay for a day, for the cook
became seriously ill. He had been ailing for some
days, and though he had high temperature, quinine and
phenacetin seemed to have no effect upon him. He was
persuaded by the headman of the village to allow the
local medical practitioner to pay him a visit. _
The doctor soon appeared, carrying a big bag, and
wearing an air of great importance. His entry into
the tent was not quite so dignified as one would
have expected from one of such learning, for it was
made on hands and knees, crawling through the refuse
of the yard, with the bag trailing behind him. The
case took a long time to diagnose, with the result that he
ordered immediate bleeding. What the complaint was
I do not know, but it would have been the death of
the man to have allowed this drastic treatment in his
then weak state, and so the medico was dismissed after
receiving his fee, and the patient recovered in due
course.
Ryder rode nearly across the plain in the afternoon,
saw Mount Everest again, and found that the great grassy
plain we were in stretched right away to the Himalayas.
From the herds of yaks and sheep seen,^ it was
obvious that the district is a favourite grazing-land.
The water drains away past Dingri, a village of
considerable size, to the east of Everest, and then
through Nepal into the Ganges.
A delay of one day is usually followed by a long
march in order to make up arrears, and on this occasion
we had more than we bargained for, crossing again into
the Tsangpo Valley, and eventually camping in some
old sheep-pens, where we were received by the usual
local officials. Such delightful hosts our new friends
turned out to be ; nothing they could do was too much
trouble for them.
Here, we caught our Tibetan interpreter receiving