AN INNOCENT ON EVEREST CHAPTER I THAT MOUNTAIN I AM no mountaineer,
although I might modestly make a claim to be regarded as a mountain
traveler my only excuse for opening this book in formal fashion
with a brief account of what led up to the final ascent of Everest
is that in studying the history of the mountain, a few points occur
to me as a layman, which I feel may be of interest to laymen. The
first questions which appeal to me as worth answering are when,
why, and how did the climbers history of Everest begin According to
the late Sir Francis Younghusband it all began at a meeting of the
Royal Geographic Society, in London, in 1919. In 1852 the height of
Peak XV had been computed by the Geographical Survey of India as
29,002 feet, making it the highest known mountain in the world, and
it was promptly renamed Everest after Sir George Everest, a former
Surveyor General. The officers of the survey were unaware at the
time that the Tibetans already had a name for it Chomolungma, which
can be translated as Mother Goddess of the Winds, Goddess mother of
the world, and possibly more correctly as The Bird Country of the
South. Now that the mountain has at last been climbed, agitation is
afoot in the East to rename it Tenzing Peak while one Indian
Newspaper, in an ecstasy that Sherpa Tenzing finally opted for, and
adopted, Indian nationality, has ad vanced the slightly absurd and
certainly anachronistic sug gestion that the mountain be known
henceforth as Mount Government of India. We can be thankful that
Sir George was blessed with a surname which has an appropriate
touch of sublimity about it which is worth preserving. Had he borne
any of a score of humdrum, undistinguished or evenequivocal names
which all of us could think of, the rest of the world might have
just cause for complaint. In the closing years of last century, and
in the opening years of this, a number of adventurous men had
harbored thoughts of climbing Everest, but few, for fear of being
laughed at, had had the temerity to voice their thoughts. To the
mountaineers of those days there were at least three factors which
seemed to make the mountain for ever unattain able. Firstly
magnitude. No man had ever presumed to pit his strength against
such a sheer mass of rock, ice and snow before. Secondly altitude.
It had long been thought that, owing to oxygen lack, a man might be
expected to drop dead in his tracks at 20,000 feet. It is true that
this figure was speedily disproved by a number of high altitude
climbs culminating, in 1909, in a height of 24,600 feet being
reached by the Duke of Abruzzis expedition when attacking K2 Mount
Godwin Austen. But even after this success it was still felt that
the utmost limit of human endurance could not be higher than 26,000
feet. Thirdly inaccessibility. Everest lies on the border of Nepal
atnd Tibet and from time immemorial the authorities of both THAT
MOUNTAIN 13 countries had followed a rigid policy of exclusion of
West erners. In this respect the Nepalese had been even more
adamant than the Tibetans. Prior to the Great War, Lord Curzon,
when Viceroy of India, had attempted to obtain permission for a
small party to visit Everest. His request had been promptly and
firmly turned down. Following the 1914-1918 war a spirit of
restlessness, not to say recklessness was abroad which was soon to
culminate in the record-breaking craze of the twenties...
General
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