Part 10

On 3rd May they reached the top of the serac at an altitude of 8,500 feet, after a very difficult journey. Mr. La Voy, who was leading, fell into a crevasse, and the strain on the rope pulled Mr. Belmore Browne to the very edge. Mr. La Voy, however, stuck on a ledge of ice, which eased the strain; without that ledge it may well be that the whole expedition would have ended in tragedy. Bit by bit they fought their way to the head of the glacier, suffering severely from the glare of the sun, though the temperature was only one degree above freezing. They had now attained an altitude of 11,000 feet, and saw a low col on the mountain ridge, where they decided to make a high camp. This would be about 12,000 feet high, which would leave them between 3,000 and 5,000 more feet to climb before they reached the basin between the north and south peaks. It was now time to send the dogs home; so, after caching their equipment, they started back for the base camp, which they reached on the evening of 8th May.

Some pleasant days were spent at the base camp. When they left it the countryside had still been in the grip of winter, but now everywhere there were grass and flowers and running streams. So far they had managed well. They had crossed the Alaskan range early enough to find the snow in good condition for dog sledding, and they had cached 300 lbs. weight of mountain provisions at 11,000 feet. They could therefore afford to wait till the days lengthened before venturing on a final climb. Here is Mr. Belmore Browne's picture of the landscape:--

"The mountain country at the northern base of Mount McKinley is the most beautiful stretch of wilderness that I have ever seen, and I will never forget those wonderful days when I followed up the velvety valleys or clambered among the high rocky peaks as my fancy led me. In the late evening I have trotted downward through valleys that were so beautiful that I was forced against my will to lie down in the soft grass and drink in the wild beauty of the spot, although I knew that I would be late for supper, and that the stove would be cold. The mountains were bare of vegetation, with the exception of velvety carpets of green grass that swept downward from the snow-fields; in the centres of the cup-shaped hollows ran streams of crystal-clear water; as the sun sank lower and lower the hills would turn a darker blue, until the cold, clean air from the snow-fields would remind you that night was come and that camp was far away."

The sight of big avalanches on Mount McKinley warned the explorers that great risks had to be faced. On the 5th day of June they started out for their final attack. Unfortunately the weather became very bad, and soon they were enveloped in a heavy snowstorm. Mr. La Voy had hurt his knee hunting, and the ascent through the seracs was for him very arduous. The nervous strain, too, was great, for they had to be perpetually on the outlook for avalanches. They feared that one might have buried their cache, and it was an immense relief when they reached the 11,000-feet point and saw the top of their sled sticking out of the snow.

They now moved their supplies up to a camp on the col of the ridge at a height of 11,800 feet. On 19th June they made a reconnaissance, taking with them food for six days, and intending to climb up to the big basin between the two main peaks. They reached a height of 13,200 feet up a sensational _arête_, when Mr. La Voy's knee gave out and they were compelled to return. Three days later they made a camp on the ridge at 13,600 feet. It was a wild and most laborious journey, with a drop of 5,000 feet on the left and of 2,000 on the right. It would take them two hours of hard work to make 500 feet. Apart from the handicap of Mr. La Voy's knee, Mr. Belmore Browne's eyes were very bad. They now realized that they could not reach the summit with their food supply of six days' rations, and they were forced to change their plans, and go back for more food.

They returned to the camp on the col and packed up ten days' rations. With tremendous difficulty they transported them up to a 15,000-feet camp on the ridge, where they were on the edge of the big glacier-filled basin between the two summits. All three found their health beginning to suffer. The pemmican proved to be impossible food, giving them all violent stomach pains, and they were forced to confine themselves to tea and hard-tack. The cold was intense, and inside the tent, with the alcohol stove burning and the warmth of three bodies, the temperature at 7.30 p.m. was five degrees below zero, and three hours later nineteen degrees below zero. "Despite elaborate precautions," says Mr. Belmore Browne, "I can say in all honesty that I did not have a single night's normal sleep above 15,000 feet on account of the cold." By this time their appearance was, as Mr. La Voy said, "sufficient to frighten children into the straight and narrow path." All were more or less snow-blind, burnt black, unshaven, with lips, noses, and hands swollen, cracked, and bleeding.

On 27th June the packs were carried in relays to just under the last serac, which was the highest point in the big basin. The altitude was 16,615 feet. Their one comfort was that a snow-field seemed to lead easily up to the sky-line of the central North-East ridge, and that from there they saw what appeared to be a reasonable gradient to the final summit. On 28th June they rested and prepared for their last effort. They were now convinced that nothing could stop them except storm. The night was fine, and the weather promised well for the morrow. The summit appeared to them to be nearly flat with a slight hummocky rise, which must be the highest point in North America.

On 29th June they left camp at 6 a.m., moving very quietly and steadily and conserving their strength. Mr. La Voy and Mr. Belmore Browne led alternately. Slowly they made their way up the snow slopes at the rate of about 400 feet an hour. At 18,500 feet they stopped and congratulated each other, for they had beaten the Duke of the Abruzzi's record on Mount St. Elias. Presently they were on the sky-line of the ridge, and looking down on the arena where they had struggled two years before. Now, for the first time, came a threat from the weather. The sky was clear to the north, but from the south a great sea of clouds rolled against the mountain like surf on a shore.

As they moved up the ridge breathing became more difficult. At 19,000 feet they had passed the last rock, and were looking at the summit. It rose as innocently as a snow-covered tennis court, but now the wind was rising and the southern sky darkening, and just at the base of the last lift the gale broke. In a fierce scurry of snow they crawled up the round dome, Mr. La Voy leading and hacking steps. Then came Mr. Belmore Browne's turn, and he realized that his hands were freezing, and that the bitter wind was cutting through his flesh. He dare not get dry mittens from his rucksack lest his hands should be frozen during the change. When his second turn was three-fourths finished, Professor Parker's barometer registered 20,000 feet, and they were within 300 feet of the top.

The rest was an evil dream. To each man the other two seemed to be lost in the ice mist, and the cold was freezing their marrow. The storm was growing fiercer, and as they topped a little rise its full fury burst upon them. The story must be given in Mr. Belmore Browne's own words:--

"The breath was driven from my body, and I held to my axe with stooped shoulders to stand against the gale; I could not go ahead. As I brushed the frost from my glasses and squinted upward through the stinging snow I saw a sight that will haunt me to my dying day. _The slope above me was no longer steep_! That was all I could see. What it meant I will never know for certain--all I can say is that we were close to the top!"

There was no going on in the teeth of that gale. The three chopped a seat in the ice, trying to find a shelter; but they were not huddled there a second before they discovered they were freezing. There was nothing for it but to return, for the snow was obliterating their back trail. Dead tired and sick at heart they began the journey back, and found that the steps they had cut had disappeared. It took them nearly two hours to go down an easy slope of 1,000 feet. They reached the base of the dome, guiding themselves only by the direction of the wind, and at last at 7.35 p.m. crawled into their upper camp. All their apparel down to their underclothes was filled with ice. They were beaten by the wind, and by the wind only. On a conservative estimate its pace was fifty-five miles an hour, and the temperature fifteen degrees below zero. Otherwise they suffered little from the altitude. Mr. Belmore Browne was able to roll and smoke a cigarette between 18,000 and 19,000 feet.

They spent a day in their tent, trying to thaw their clothes. Pemmican they could not touch, their chocolate was finished, and their food was tea, sugar, hardtack, and raisins. It was a cruel fate that they had lost ten days' rations in useless pemmican since leaving their 13,200-feet camp, and they had not only lost the food but carried useless weight.

They made one more attempt on the summit, and reached the base of the final dome; but there another storm assailed them, and, after waiting an hour, they went back. There was now a real risk of being caught with insufficient food in a blizzard which would destroy life, and they made haste down the mountain. They had spent seven days above 15,000 feet, six days above 16,000 feet, and four days above 16,650 feet.

As they descended their health improved, and at last they came off the glacier on to the moraine, and lay down on the bare earth. It was the first time for thirty days that they had lain on anything but snow and ice. They slept like logs till the afternoon, and when they awoke a warm wind was blowing up the pass, carrying with it the smell of grass and flowers. "Never can I forget," says Mr. Belmore Browne, "the flood of emotions that swept over me. Professor Parker and La Voy were equally affected by this first smell of the lowlands, and we were wet-eyed and chattered like children as we prepared our packs for the last stage of our journey."

How dangerous was the climatic condition of the mountain may be judged from what happened on the evening of 6th July. From their camp in the foothills they saw the sky suddenly turn a sickly green. There came a deep rumbling from the Alaskan range, and as they looked the mountains melted into mist and the earth began to heave and roll. In front of them a boulder weighing 200 lbs. broke loose from the earth and moved. The surface of the hills seemed to open and the cracks to spout liquid mud. The whole range was wrapped in dust, and as it cleared they saw the peaks spouting avalanches. Had this earthquake overtaken them on the high ground all must have perished.

III

The story has always seemed to me one of the boldest and most patient adventures in the history of mountaineering. Slowly the travellers fought their way to the discovery of the only practical route. Mount McKinley was conquered, though they had failed to cover the hundred or so feet which would have given them the actual summit. They had blazed the path to the top and solved its mysteries. Only that maleficent blizzard at the last moment robbed them of the full fruit of six years' pioneering.

Next year the actual summit was reached. The late Dr. Hudson Stuck, the Archdeacon of the Yukon, ever since he came to the country nine years before, had contemplated an attempt on the mountain. In the autumn of 1912 he sent on supplies by way of the Kantishna River to a point fifty miles from the base. In March, 1913, he and Mr. W. P. Karstens set out to reach the peak from the north. At their base camp, 4,000 feet up, they made a fresh supply of caribou pemmican which proved more satisfactory than that used by Professor Parker and Mr. Belmore Browne. The road taken was the same as that of their predecessors--up the Muldrow Glacier and then up the central North-East ridge. They found that the earthquake of 1912 had completely changed the character of that ridge, and instead of being a reasonable snow gradient, it had become a confused mass of rock and ice, most difficult to surmount. Bit by bit they forced their way up it till they reached the upper basin, and then, being favoured with clear, bright, still weather, they managed to attain the highest point, the southern summit. There had been a story of two miners, called McGonogall and Anderson, who had reached the top in 1910. Dr. Stuck discovered that the top they had reached was the lesser northern peak, for he saw the remains of their flagstaff.

With this ascent the story of the conquest of Mount McKinley is complete.*

* Dr. Stuck argued with much reason that the present name of the mountain is unsuitable, and that the Indian name "Denali"--which means "the Great One"--should be restored. It is to be feared that the suggestion comes too late in the day. Ever since the expedition of 1906 Mount McKinley has become too familiar a name in the Western Hemisphere to be readily changed for another. The story of the Parker-Browne expedition is contained in _The Conquest of Mount McKinley_ (New York, Putnams, 1913), and that of Dr. Stuck in _The Ascent of Denali_ (New York, Scribners, 1914).

VII

THE HOLY CITIES OF ISLAM

THE HOLY CITIES OF ISLAM

(_Map_, p. 216.)

The "spell of far Arabia" has been a potent thing from the days when the Egyptians drew wealth from the spice-land of Punt, and Greek traders brought stories of the gums and jewels of Araby the Blessed. But ever since it became the Holy Land of Islam a veil of secrecy, other than that of its stern climate and inhospitable deserts, has descended upon it. It is one of the oldest of arenas of adventure, and it is still one of the least exploited; indeed, in its great Southern Desert it holds one of the few unriddled mysteries of the globe. Except for the semi-mythical Gregorio, who may be read of in Albuquerque's Commentaries, no one who did not profess the creed of Islam has entered its two Holy Cities and lived. But the greatest tale of Arabian exploration is not concerned with Mecca and Medina. It is to be found rather in the journeys of the English soldier Captain Sadlier in Nejd; of Sir Richard Burton in the land of Midian; of Wallin, who crossed the great Nafud sands; of William Gilford Palgrave, who may, or may not, have been an agent of Napoleon III.; and, above all, of Charles Montague Doughty, who, as an avowed Christian, explored the Northern Hedjaz, and in his _Arabia Deserta_ has written one of the foremost classics of travel in the English tongue.

Compared with some of these wanderings, a visit to the Holy Cities was a simple matter, requiring only a firm nerve, a good knowledge of Arabic and of Mohammedan ritual, and a real or professed adherence to the creed of Islam. At the beginning of this century the list of Europeans who had entered Mecca and Medina was a long one. They were mostly renegades--French, English, Irish, Scottish, and Italian. In 1807 a certain Domingo Badia y Leblich of Cadiz, travelling as a Moslem prince called Ali Bey, and probably in the pay of Napoleon, entered Mecca in state; but he had become a genuine Mussulman. In 1815 one Thomas Keith, a deserter from the 72nd Highlanders, was Governor of Medina--surely one of the strangest posts ever held even by a Scot! The great European travellers like Burckhardt, Wallin, and Burton went to the Holy Cities in order that by attaining the rank and fame of a Hadji they might win an advantage for travelling in other Moslem lands. More than one of them has described minutely the interior of both Mecca and Medina and the ritual of the great ceremonies. The Holy Places, though few Western eyes had seen them, were sufficiently well known to the Western world. Their true unveiling may be said to have come about during the Great War, when Hussein, the Sherif of Mecca, fought as an ally with the British, and, as King of the Hedjaz, proclaimed his independence of Turkey.

Yet one journey was taken just before the Great War which must rank by itself. It told the world nothing that was not known before; but it had the merit of giving a picture of Mecca and Medina under the latest conditions--a picture drawn with such vigour and in such detail that it may fairly claim to have revealed the Holy Cities in a new light to the ordinary man.

Mr. A. J. B. Wavell greatly distinguished himself in command of Arab scouts in East Africa in the early part of the Great War, and was responsible for the brilliant affair at Gazi. In that campaign he gave his life for his country.* He had been at Winchester, and in 1908, when he made the plan for visiting Mecca, had been living for some time at Mombasa, where he had acquired Arabic and Swahili, and a considerable knowledge of Moslem customs. His motive was partly curiosity, partly, as he says, to accustom himself to Arab ways, with a view to further explorations in Arabia, and partly in order to obtain the useful prestige of a Hadji. He chose as his companions a certain Abdul Wahid, an Arab from Aleppo who was established in Berlin, and Masaudi, a Mombasa native. The three met at Marseilles on September 23, 1908. They started in good time, for though the pilgrimage was not to take place till the beginning of the following January, Mr. Wavell wanted to go first to Medina, and also to prepare himself by a preliminary discipline in Eastern life. He managed to secure a Turkish passport, which described him as one Ali bin Mohammed, aged twenty-five, a subject of Zanzibar on his way to Mecca.

* He fell on January 8, 1916.

The three found a vessel at Genoa which took them to Alexandria, where they managed, not without trouble, to get their medicine chest, pistols, and ammunition past the Customs. They then took passages on a Khedivial mail ship for Beyrout. Mr. Wavell had feared that the language difficulty would be serious, but he found it less formidable than he expected, since the dialects of Arabic are many. He explained to those who found imperfections in his accent that in Zanzibar the colloquial language was Swahili and that no one talked Arabic; and on the few occasions when he had to speak Swahili he inverted the story, announcing that, having been born in Muscat, his real language was Arabic. As Sir Richard Burton discovered in his own journey, it was rare indeed to find any one sufficiently well acquainted with both languages to find him out. Meantime he had changed at Alexandria into Arab clothes and shaved his head.

They reached Beyrout safely, and proceeded at once by rail to Damascus. As they did not propose to start for Medina for some weeks, they took rooms and settled down, devoting great attention to the various Moslem ceremonies, and picking up the right kind of phrases and quotations and greetings. It is on such small things that the efficacy of a disguise depends. "There are nearly as many white men at Mecca," Mr. Wavell writes in his account of his adventures,* "as there are men black or brown in colour. Syrian 'Arabs' not infrequently have fair hair and blue eyes, as likewise have some of the natives of the Holy Cities themselves. I was once asked what colour I stained myself for this journey. The question reveals the curious ignorance that lies at the bottom of the so-called race prejudice, of which some people are so proud. You might as well black yourself all over to play Hamlet!"

* _A Modern Pilgrim in Mecca_, by A. J. B. Wavell (Constable, 1912).

Abdul Wahid had brought letters of introduction to a local merchant, who was most hospitable, and supervised the preparations for the journey. They passed safely through the period of Ramadan, and so complete was Mr. Wavell's get-up, and so stalwart his Moslem respectability, that it was with some difficulty that he prevented a middle-aged lady and her two daughters from joining his party for the pilgrimage. He bought the "Ihram," the white robes which are required when entering Mecca, a full camp equipment, and a certain number of stores, and deposited his money with his merchant friend, who gave him two cheques on his agents, one at Medina and one at Mecca. He proposed to travel to Medina by the Hedjaz railway, a very different method from those used by earlier adventurers when aiming at Mecca.

The third-class carriages were desperately crowded, and the train started to the accompaniment of gramophones--a modern invention which is very popular in the Hedjaz. On the way Mr. Wavell had a touch of malaria, and his fellow pilgrims showed him every kindness. Presently the train reached Medain Salih, the boundary of the Hedjaz, which no infidel is permitted to pass. On the fourth day the rocky hills opened, and through a gap appeared the minarets of the Prophet's mosque. They arrived at Medina in the middle of a battle, for the Turkish garrison had come to loggerheads with the neighbouring Bedawin, and the Holy City was more or less in a state of siege. The railway was spoiling trade for the neighbouring tribes, and they were demanding compensation, which Constantinople would not pay.

Medina lies in an open plain some 3,000 feet above sea-level. To the south the country is open, but on the north and west, between five and ten miles distant, rise rocky mountains. The city, which has a population of some 30,000, lives entirely on the pilgrims, as an English watering-place lives on summer visitors. The pilgrims are classified by their lands of origin, and there are official guides, called Mutowifs, attached to each group. The first trouble arose from these guides. If Mr. Wavell went about with the Zanzibar Mutowifs he was certain to meet some one who knew him in Mombasa, even if he were not caught out in the language. So it was arranged that Abdul Wahid should profess to come from Bagdad, while Mr. Wavell passed as "a Derweish," and Masaudi as his slave. A "Derweish," which denotes properly a member of certain monastic orders, is a title occasionally assumed by pilgrims who do not wish to be identified with any particular nationality.

Happily, at the station there were no Zanzibar guides, and the party were able to find rooms in a retired corner at the moderate rate of £2 a month. The landlord was an Abyssinian called Iman, a man of some private means, who had been captured as a child by Arab slavers and sold in Mecca. He proved a most useful friend to the party during their stay.