The reader will gather from these notes some idea of the whole nature of our problem and the subjects of our most anxious thoughts. The camp established on June 25 lasted us until July 8. Meanwhile the idea was growing, the vision of Everest as a structural whole, and of the glaciers and lower summits to North and West. This idea resembled the beginning of an artist's painting, a mere rough design at the start, but growing by steps of clearer definition in one part and another towards the precise completion of a whole. For us the mountain parts defined themselves in the mind as the result of various expeditions. We set out to gain a point of view with particular questions to be answered; partial answers and a new point of view stimulated more curiosity, other questions, and again the necessity to reach a particular place whence we imagined they might best be answered. And at the same time another aim had to be kept in mind. The coolies, though mountain-men, were not mountaineers. They had to be trained in the craft of mountaineering, in treading safely on snow or ice in dangerous places, in climbing easy rocks and most particularly in the use of rope and ice-axe--and this not merely for our foremost needs, but to ensure that, whenever we were able to launch an assault upon Mount Everest, and all would be put to the most exhausting test, they should have that reserve strength of a practised balance and ordered method on which security must ultimately depend. On July 1 I set out with five coolies to reach the head of the great cwm under the North face of Mount Everest. The snow on the upper glacier was soft and made very heavy going. Bad weather came up and in a race against the clouds we were beaten and failed to find out what happened to the glacier at its Western head under the North-west arete. My view of the col lying between Everest and the North Peak (Changtse)--the North Col as we now began to call it, or in Tibetan Chang La--was also unsatisfactory; but I saw enough to make out a broken glacier running up eastwards towards the gap with steep and uninviting snow slopes under the pass. I was now sure that before attempting to reach this col from the Rongbuk Glacier, if ever we determined to reach it, we should have to reconnoitre the other side and if possible find a more hopeful alternative; moreover, from a nearer inspection of the slopes below the North-west arete I was convinced that they could be chosen for an attack only as a last resort; if anything were to be attempted here, we must find a better way up from the East.