Trintang village occupies a plateau 1,750 feet above the level of the river; 1,400 feet below is the village of Tropde, to which the Trintang residents all descend in winter. Rongshar Dzong, which is situated in the lower village, has no importance; at the time of our visit the Dzongpen had gone to his home on leave of absence, leaving his affairs in the hands of a steward. A day's halt being necessary in order to collect transport, I took the opportunity of descending the Rongshar Valley as far as the Nepal frontier, while Gujjar Singh endeavoured, without much success, to pick up the threads of his survey by identifying the snowy peaks which occasionally afforded brief glimpses through rifts in the clouds. The Rongshar River drops 1,400 feet in 7 miles between Tropde and the Nepal frontier, which is crossed at an altitude of roughly 9,000 feet. On July 27 we marched 20 miles up the Rongshar Valley to the village of Tazang (Takpa-Santsam, "limit of birch trees"), which, as its name implies, is situated at the extreme upper limit of the forest zone. On the way we passed the village and monastery of Chuphar, whence a track leads South-east over the difficult snow-pass of Menlung ("vale of medicinal herbs") to the villages of Rowaling and Tangpa in the Kangphu Valley of Nepal. Tazang had already been visited by Colonel Bury, a month previously. The local headman was too drunk, on the evening of our arrival, to send out the necessary messages summoning the village transport-yaks from their grazing grounds. In consequence, our baggage was only got under weigh at 11 a.m. next morning, and we were compelled to pitch our tents at a grazing camp (16,500 feet) after only covering 9 miles. The weather showed signs of improvement in proportion as we receded from the Himalayan gorges, but dense banks of cloud still obscured all the hill-tops. An easy march over the Phuse La (17,850 feet) brought us on the 29th to the bleak village of Kyetrak, situated at the foot of the great Kyetrak Glacier, on the extreme Southern edge of the Tingri plain--an area which we had already surveyed six weeks previously. From Kyetrak we proceeded via the Lamna La to Choebuk, thence following the tracks of the Expedition headquarters which Colonel Bury had just transferred from Tingri to Kharta in the lower Bhong Chu Valley. On reaching headquarters on August 2, we found Colonel Bury in sole occupation--Mallory and Bullock having left that very morning on a reconnaissance of the Eastern approaches to Mount Everest. The weather during the whole of August was such as to render out-of-door survey operations impossible. Gujjar Singh was occupied during the month in adjusting and inking his surveys, while I filled in several days in making tracings of all work so far completed, after which, for the remainder of the season, I joined the mountaineers, whose doings are recorded elsewhere in this book.