Breakfasting, as usual, at 5 a.m., I started up the hill South of the camp and was lucky enough to get a clear view of Everest and the Rongbuk Valley that led up to it. This valley ran right up to the foot of Mount Everest and seemed an easy enough approach, but the mountain itself looked absolutely unscalable from this side, showing nothing but a series of very steep precipices. The day turned out to be a very hot one. I descended into the valley below, and started to ride up towards Mount Everest. Presently I came to an unfordable stream, and after making several attempts to get across this, found myself compelled to return several miles down the valley to the monastery of Choebu, where there was a slender footbridge. The pony that I was riding was swum across, a rope being attached to its head. He was then pulled over to the far side, a proceeding he did not at all enjoy. The yaks, too, were unladen, and the loads carried by hand over the bridge. After this the yaks were driven into the river and made to swim across, but they only went as far as an island in the middle of the river. From this place they would not budge in spite of stones, curses and threats, until at length a man with a sling, fetched from the monastery, hurled stones at them with great violence: this procedure apparently so stung them up that they thought it advisable to cross the remainder of the stream. At the entrance to the valley, we passed some very tame burhel within a few yards of the path, and then went along at the foot of some fine cliffs with limestone on the top and layers of hornblende and granite below. At first there was quite a rich vegetation growing here, considering we were just on 16,000 feet. There were juniper bushes, clematis, willows, a genista, rock roses, and even some yellow primulas, but as we got further into the valley it became more stony, and on either side of the path were small piles of stones heaped up by pilgrims. The valley was considered very sacred and was apparently a great place of pilgrimage. We found the base camp of the Alpine climbers pitched close to the Rongbuk Monastery, where there lived a very high re-incarnated Lama who was in meditation and not allowed to see anyone. This valley was called the Rongbuk, or inner valley--a name well suited to it; the legend was that from this valley there used to be a pass over into the Khombu Valley, but the high Lama who lived here forbade the use of it, as it disturbed the meditations of the recluses and hermits, of which there were several hundred here. At first these good people did not at all approve of our coming into this valley, as they thought we should be likely to disturb and distract their meditations.