The following day, notwithstanding their fatigue, they determined to get down to Camp I. They certainly were a sight on arrival; I have never seen such a crowd of swollen and blistered and weary mountaineers before, but they were all naturally tremendously elated with their performance. Strutt came down with them, and quite rightly too; he had been a very long time living above 21,000 feet, and this in itself is a great strain. I thoroughly endorse his judgment in making this great attempt without oxygen. At first sight it would seem that it was not wise to send so many of the best climbers at once on to the mountain before the oxygen apparatus was ready, but he felt (and I consider he was quite right) that as the weather was so bad and the monsoon was evidently arriving before its time, and as at the moment the oxygen apparatus was in such a doubtful condition, it was far better to make an attempt than possibly to fail in making any attempt at all. [Illustration: MOUNT EVEREST FROM CAMP III. ] During the time that the great attempt on the mountain without oxygen was being made, Finch was employed in getting the oxygen apparatus into order. It had suffered in a good many ways, and the method of inhaling the oxygen appeared to be deficient, the face-masks, in fact, causing a feeling of suffocation and not allowing a sufficiency of ordinary air to be inhaled. Finch had a very difficult time getting all this apparatus into order in this very high camp. It would have been difficult anywhere, but up here in the great cold and the great height it was infinitely more troublesome. As soon as the apparatus was in working order, they made numerous training walks up on to the passes, looking down into the heart of the Kharta Valley, from where they were able to see the Southern faces of the Himalaya and to know the way in which the clouds were pushing up from the South. They had also instructed, to a certain extent, the Gurkha Tejbir Bura in the use of oxygen, as they intended him to help them in their advance on the mountain.