quite unhurt; Henri and I had only a few cuts and
grazes. We had all three lost our topees and ice-axes,
and the two men had each broken a crampon. We
had fallen a thousand feet at least, and we fully realised
what a miraculous escape we had had. I think we were
to blame in having ventured to descend any steep
Himalayan snow-slope after the sun had been on it all
day, especially as most slopes in these mountains are
really steeper than they look. In the Alps the
reverse is usually the case, while the snows of the
Caucasus take an intermediate position.
The men with great pluck at once started up again
to recover the ice-axes, whilst I cautiously descended
the rest of the slope towards the rocks where we intended
to spend the night. On the way down I saw
one of the topees; of the others there was no trace.
After a little search I found a small platform of rocks,
half overhung by a big boulder, and built a low stonewall
round one side to keep the wind off. The men came
down about eight o’clock, having recovered all three
ice-axes, a very fine performance on their part. Our
dinner consisted of a box of sardines and a slab of
chocolate, washed down with water. We put on what
few spare clothes we had with us, and curled up for a
cold night. However, sleep would not come to me,
and, worse still, I had very little tobacco !
In the morning (July 24) we found that we had
several rock gullies to descend before we could take to
the glacier, and as we spent some time looking for our
hats we did not start upwards again till half-past six,
when we took to the upper part of the Gurla Mandhata
glacier. Soon we began to feel the power of the sun,
and Alexis most generously insisted on my wearing his
topee, he and his brother wrapping jerseys and handkerchiefs
round their heads. The glacier was much
crevassed, but fairly easy when taken in big zig-zags,
and the snow was hard. We toiled on as fast as we
could and seemed to make height rapidly. But the
heat in the hollow of the glacier was most oppressive,
and at two o’clock Alexis collapsed with a sun-headache.
We put him into the shade of a small serac and told him
to try and get some sleep. I t was very hard luck on
him and most unfortunate for our climb : we quite
thought that we could get to the top of the peak and
get down the short steep bit just below it before nightfall,
finishing the descent with the help of our old tracks
by lantern light. But Alexis was too ill to go back
alone and we did not like to leave him to wait for us
in such a condition. Henri immediately set about
making a hole in the snow for us to sleep in. He is a