In the Forbidden Land | Page 8

contained a vast amount of fat and carbonaceous food, as well as ingredients easily digestible and calculated to maintain one's strength even in moments of unusual stress. I had them packed in tin cases and skin bags. I carried in a water-tight box 1000 cartridges for my 256° Mannlicher rifle, besides 500 cartridges for my revolver, and a number of hunting knives, skinning implements, wire traps of several sizes for capturing small mammals, butterfly nets, bottles for preserving reptiles in alcohol, insect-killing bottles (cyanide of potassium), a quantity of arsenical soap, bone nippers, scalpels, and all other accessories necessary for the collection of natural history specimens. There were three sets of photographic apparatus in my outfit, and one hundred and fifty-eight dozen dry plates, as well as all adjuncts for the developing, fixing, etc. of the negatives as they were taken. The collecting materials were given me by the British Museum of Natural History, to which institution I had promised to present all specimens of fauna and flora I might collect during my journey. I had two sets of instruments for astronomical observation and for use in surveying (one of which had been furnished me by the Royal Geographical Society), such as the six-inch sextant, hypsometrical apparatus for measuring heights, with boiling-point thermometers specially constructed for very great altitudes; two aneroids, one to 20,000 feet, the other to 25,000 feet; three artificial horizons (one mercury, the others plate-glass with levels); a powerful telescope with astronomical eyepiece and stand; a prismatic, a luminous, a floating, and two pocket compasses; maximum and minimum thermometers, a case of drawing instruments, protractors, parallel rules, tape rules, a silver water-tight half-chronometer watch and three other watches, section paper in books and in large sheets, Raper's and the Nautical Almanac for 1897 and 1898.
Not to neglect the artistic aspect of my expedition, I had provided myself with ample painting and drawing materials, and I trust to the appearance of my sketches in these volumes to prove that I did not carry them in vain.
I was provided with a very light mountain tente-d'abri seven feet long, four feet wide, and three feet high. Well accustomed to the sort of travelling I was in for, I decided that I required for myself only a camel-hair blanket in the way of bedding. I reduced my clothing also to a minimum and made no difference in it from start to finish. The only thing I ever missed was my straw hat, which I wore up in the Himahlyas just as I had worn it in the broiling plains, because it seemed to me always the most comfortable headgear. It was rendered unwearable through the clumsiness of one of my Shokas to whom I had lent it to carry in it some swan eggs (presented by a friendly Shoka), and who fell with it, or on it, to the detriment and destruction both of vessel and load. After that I generally went about with my head uncovered, as I only had a small cap left, which was not comfortable. I wore medium thick shoes without nails, and never carried a stick, and I think it was due largely to the simplicity of my personal equipment that I was able, as will be seen presently, to climb to one of the greatest altitudes ever reached by a human being.[1]
My provision of medicines cost me only half-a-crown, firm as I am in the belief that man, living naturally under natural conditions, and giving himself plenty of exercise, can be helped very little by drugs.
And thus I started.
On the first day I rode from Naini Tal to Almora, thirty miles by the lower and well-known road via Khairna.
Almora (5510 feet) is the last hill station towards the frontier where I expected to find a European, or rather an Anglo-Indian, community, and I made it my headquarters for a few days. It was my intention to obtain some reliable hill men, possibly Gourkhas, to accompany me. I applied in vain for this purpose to the Lieut.-Colonel of the 1st 3rd Gourkha Regiment quartered in the station, duly showing letters, introductions, and documents from the highest authorities and institutions in England, plainly demonstrating the scientific object of my journey to Tibet.
The superior authorities seemed open to negotiations had I been able to afford a wait of several months; but, as this would have involved the postponement of my journey for a year on account of the passes leading into Tibet becoming impassable at the end of the summer, I decided to snap my fingers at all the red tape the job required, and to start on my journey without the Gourkhas.
As luck would have it, I came across a gentleman at Almora, a Mr. J. Larkin, who showed me great politeness and gave me much useful