I think in my present incarnation the passion that I have for taking Turkish baths may be some slight reaction from my life in the previous and superior conditions as a Tibetan Lama. The following morning, in cold weather, as usual, we left to try and push our camp as high up as possible. Our march now became very interesting, and we passed on our road, which was fairly rough, six or seven of the hermits’ dwellings. These men are fed fairly regularly from the monasteries and nunneries, and do not necessarily take their vows of isolation for ever all at once. They try a year of it and see how they get on before they take the complete vows, but how it is possible for human beings to stand what they stand, even for a year, without either dying or going mad, passes comprehension. Their cells are very small, and they spend the whole of their time in a kind of contemplation of the ōm, the god-head, and apparently of nothing else. They are supposed to be able to live on one handful of grain per diem, but this we were able successfully to prove was not the case; they appear, as far as we could make out, to have a sufficiency of food always brought to them. However, there they are in little cells, without firing or warm drinks, all the year round, and many of them last for a great number of years. Our march took us right up to the snout of the main Rongbuk Glacier, and on arrival there we vainly endeavoured to get our yak-men to push up the trough between the glacier and the mountain-side. There was promptly a strike among the local transport workers, but the employers of labour were wise enough to give in to their demands. If we had pushed further up, we must have injured a great number of animals, and finally have been obliged to return. So we found a fairly good site, protected to a small extent from the prevailing West wind, and there we collected the whole of our outfit and pitched our camp. I do not think such an enormous cavalcade could possibly have mounted the Rongbuk Glacier before. There were over 300 baggage animals, about twenty ponies, fifty or sixty men in our own employ, and the best part of 100 Tibetans, either looking after us or coming up as representatives of the Shekar Dzongpen. Finally, all were paid off, and the Expedition was left alone in its glory. The date was the 1st of May. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER II THE ASSAULT ON THE MOUNTAIN