ASSAULT ON EVEREST

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18759, 16 July 1935, Page 12

ASSAULT ON EVEREST

PROGRESS OF PARTY 8 DAYS FROM DARJEELING "Eight days’ march from Darjeeling, Mr, Aj, V, isryant, a memoer of tne Alt. Everest reconnaissance expedition, Uus Written further letters to Taranaki friends, but his contract with the Alt. Everest Expedition Committee permits the publication of only small sections. Mr. Bryant was amused by the sight of natives crossing a high swingbnage oyer a narrow gorge, baringi their heads, and touching the bridge railing arid then' their loreheads three times, it was annoying, he wrote, to pass numerous streams of inviting water only to realise that one must not touch it. Cholera and dysentry were rife in those districts. His sheupa, or servant, >was looking after him splendidly. ’-'On-May 30 Mr. Bryant saw his first leeches. -He was surprised by the fact fhkv they could not be removed once they had secured a hold, and a free flow of blood ensued wheu they had had a fill, -■ With the other members of the parly ME 'Bryant is feeling fit and well. Writing of the conclusion of his trip from- New Zealand, Mr. Bryant described the 36 hours’ journey from Bombay to Calcutta as anything but a pleasurable one. The temperature was 109 degrees in the shade, but he- was told that it could be hotter. He met several New Zealanders at Bombay, and after staying 36 hours at Calcutta left for Darjeeling. ,‘T had the experience while crossing India yesterday of having one of my suitcases rifled,” he wrote on May 13. “This probably happened while the man who shared my compartment was in the dining car ana I was in the rtext compartment . with some friends. The thieves, evidently satisfied themselves, by taking a dressing gown, a few shirts and pyjamas, a belt and a few other things. Passengers on Indian trains are warned against-'thieves. Thieving is evidently very rife out here.”