It has not the smooth undulations of a snow mountain with white snow cap and glaciated flanks. It is rather a great rock mass, coated often with a thin layer of white powder which is blown about its sides, and bearing perennial snow only on the gentler ledges and on several wide faces less steep than the rest. One such place is the long arm of the North-west arete which with its slightly articulated buttresses is like the nave of a vast cathedral roofed with snow. I was, in fact, reminded often by this Northern view of Winchester Cathedral with its long high nave and low square tower; it is only at a considerable distance that one appreciates the great height of this building and the strength which seems capable of supporting a far taller tower. Similarly with Everest; the summit lies back so far along the immense aretes that big as it always appears one required a distant view to realise its height; and it has no spire though it might easily bear one; I have thought sometimes that a Matterhorn might be piled on the top of Everest and the gigantic structure would support the added weight in stable equanimity. On June 26 we pitched our tents in full view of Everest and a little way beyond the large monastery of Choeyling which provides the habitations nearest to the mountain, about 16 miles away. After three days' march from the Expedition's headquarters at Tingri we had found the object of our quest and established a base in the Rongbuk Valley, which was to serve us for a month. The first steps in a prolonged reconnaissance such as we were proposing to undertake were easily determined by topographical circumstances. Neither Bullock nor I was previously acquainted with any big mountains outside the Alps; to our experience in the Alps we had continually to refer, both for understanding this country and for estimating the efforts required to reach a given point in it. The Alps provided a standard of comparison which alone could be our guide until we had acquired some fresh knowledge in the new surroundings. No feature of what we saw so immediately challenged this comparison as the glacier ahead of us; in so narrow a glacier it was hardly surprising that the lower part of it should be covered with stones, but higher the whole surface was white ice, and the white ice came down in a broad stream tapering gradually to a point when it was lost in the waste of the brown grey. What was the meaning of this? Even from a distance it was possible to make out that the white stream contained pinnacles of ice. Was it all composed of pinnacles? Would they prove an insuperable obstacle? In the Alps the main glaciers are most usually highways, the ways offered to the climber for his travelling. Were they not to prove highways here?