Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/38

32 I trust he will be all right in a few days.

Taken all round, it is a great spree out here, but of mountaineering, as we know it in the Alps, there is little or none.

In this air one can't do more than three or four thousand feet in a day, and that means only going where loaded coolies can go. One of our Ghurkas is first rate.

The other climbs well, but can't carry much.

They go quite up to the average Swiss guide in style, and are as steady as possible.

We have got some of the luggage part of the way up Nanga (to 16,000 ft.), but we find it no end of a job to get it higher, as the coolies won't go over 14,500 ft., where the upper glacier begins; however, I hope we shall work it all right, as we have a good line all the way up, and are getting into better training.

I am going to do my best to bring you the top of Nanga, though I begin to have some doubts about our ultimate success.

The air is so baffling, and the sun is almost worse; it regularly takes all the strength out of one after 10 a.m.

Collie and I took up 12 lbs. of chocolate, 6 tins (2 lbs. each) of Huntley & Palmer's biscuits, Brand's soups and essence, &c., to a point 17,000 ft. up Nanga yesterday, and deposited them in watertight knapsacks.

We shall make another expedition early next