IN MEMORIAM

1. CHETTAN.
2. Gilbert Edward Eoutliff Cooper.
3. Lieutenant Ian Macfarlane Cadell.

 

 

CHETTAN.

WHEN mountaineers began the exploration of the Alps they found no native guides with any craft beyond that gained in chamois hunting : it was through association with amateurs that the Alpine guide came into being. So in the Himalaya, though Younghusband, Mummery, Bruce and others have found good local talent amongst the hill tribes, the native guide has not as yet been evolved. The lamentable death of the Sherpa, Chettan, on Kangchenjunga has cut short the life of one who might well have developed into a real guide. A number of Gurkhas have been trained by British officers, and Kellas did all his climbing with men he recruited in Sikkim and trained himself ; yet the Sherpas and Bhotias selected by Bruce for the Everest expeditions are generally considered the best material for our purpose. Chettan was one of the best of these, and his companion Lewa is another.

Familiarly known as " Satan," lie began his mountaineering career as personal attendant to Finch during the second Everest expedition. Finch liked him and taught him something of the use of axe and rope. He went twice to Camp 5 with Finch and Geoffrey Bruce. In 1924 he was one of the " Tigers," who survived the earlier buffets of that year's terrible weather. He was one of the two men selected by Hingston to accompany him when bringing down Norton snowblind from the North Col. a most memorable feat for all concerned. In 1926 Somervell selected him to join Hugh Ruttledge's party in Kumaun, and he stayed on with the party after Somervell's departure. Ruttledge notes that on Qalgunga Chettan carried twice as heavy a load as anyone else. On the descent of the Ralam pass he was given charge of a rope, and when his party of local porters slipped, though he could not hold them all, he kept his head and his balance and steered them to safety, afterwards restoring their moral by continuous ragging. On Kailas General Wilson was impressed not only with his climbing powers, but by his mountain judgment and keenness. Again on the descent of Traill's pass he was entrusted with a rope, got his party safely down a rotten cliff and showed great steadiness lower down among bad crevasses. Ruttledge is confident that the local porters would not have faced this descent but for Chettan, so that he was really doing a guide's work.

Ruttledge again got Chettan in 1927 for an excursion into Garhwal. He brought Lewa and four other Sherpas with him, and with these six men we found ourselves quite independent of local assistance. Though Chettan did all our cooking he carried a heavy load up the glaciers. During the reconnaissance of the Nandagini pass in bad weather he was quite unconcerned, discussing all the time how Trisul could be climbed from that side.*

Chettan was intelligent and quick to learn. Also he was particularly easy to get on with. He was always keen and always cheerful —sometimes too cheerful; but only after work was over and finished, and he bore no malice under correction. When I parted from him in 1927 I offered him a present of money, but he asked me to give him my clasp-knife, saying that thus he would be reminded of me daily ; while the money he would surely spend and forget all about. He understood what mountaineering means to us and shared our interests to the full. He was on the road to be a guide, with all that word implies among mountaineers, which is that the servant becomes a companion and a friend.

T. G. Longstaff.

 

 

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Captain Frank Ashcroft.

(1900-1930.)

Captain Frank Ashcroft, 6th Royal Battalion 13th Frontier Force Rifles (Scinde), was killed with eight of his men in action against the Hathi Khel Wazirs on the 24th August 1930, after inflicting considerably higher casualties on the enemy. The untimely death of this gallant officer is a great loss to his Battalion and to the Indian Army, while for those who knew him well there remains a gap which cannot be filled. He was a keen member of the Himalayan Club, his last venture among our mountains being through Chitral to the Badakshan border. He was of exceptional ability and efficiency and in addition possessed those qualities so necessary for Himalayan travel, which combine cheerfulness, inventiveness and a peculiarly imaginative sense of humour.

W. Fitz-Maurice.

 

 

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Gilbert Edward Eoutliff Cooper.

(1885-1930.)

Gilbert Cooper, who died at the early age of 45 from jaundice and heart-failure in the Rangoon Hospital on the 11th March, spent most of his service in the Survey of India on topographical work in Berar, the North-West Frontier and in Burma. He served with the East Persia Survey Party during the Great War and in the Afghan War of 1919.

A prominent member of the Bombay Natural History Society, his private collection of butterflies being one of the finest in the East, he was regarded as one of the first authorities in India on Oriental Butterflies. He was also a keen shikari and had made several Himalayan journeys, both on duty and for sport. He was elected to the Himalayan Club in 1929 and had promised to contribute a paper on Oriental Butterflies for publication in this Journal. Unfortunately this was not sufficiently advanced when he was taken ill.

Kenneth Mason.

 

 

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Lieutenant Ian Macfarlane Cadell.

(1902-1930.)

Ian Macfarlane Cadell, son of Lt.-Col. Cadell, i.m.s., was born on 30th July 1902 and commissioned in the Royal Engineers on 31st August 1922. He arrived in India on 13th March 1925 and was appointed to the Survey of India a year later. He died of pneumonia at Loi Hkio in the Southern Shan States on 27th December 1930.

The first ten months of his service in the Survey of India was on an instructional course at Dehra Dun. Towards the end of this he was an indefatigable observer for the International Longitude determination of October-December 1926. Immediately after this he joined " A " Company on the Frontier and carried out very strenuous triangulation in Chitral, his energy being the admiration of all who witnessed it.

He returned to Dehra Dun in January 1929 and after holding charge for short spells of the Levelling Party and Drawing Office executed some work in the outer Himalaya to settle the Deori Kharam boundary dispute between Sirmoor and Jubbal. He was given charge of 15 Party (triangulation) in August 1929.

The main feature of the programme was the accurate connection of the triangulation of India and Burma with that of Siam. In 1881 a series of triangulation had been observed just south of latitude 14° connecting Bangkok with the Burma Coast Series. This was not of the necessary precision for to-day in view of the amount and quality of triangulation subsequently observed by the Siamese Survey Department ; and the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics had passed a resolution in 1927 urging that the triangulation of Burma and Siam should be adequately connected. It was decided that two connections should be made, one at latitude 20°, which entailed re- observing the old Mong Hsat secondary series and also extending the Great Salween Series to join the north terminus of the Siamese triangulation; and the second at latitude 10° 45' in the Mergui neighbourhood.

Work on the first of these was commenced in 1928-29 ; but failed owing to instrumental defects. In 1929-30 Cadell began the southerly extension of the Great Salween Series. The climate of the Southern Shan States is not favourable to triangulation and work was very much impeded by bad visibility. Though he took the field at the earliest possible time he was only able to complete 6 stations, when work had to be stopped in mid-February. He had meantime reconnoitred for a base-line on the Kengtung plain.

On taking the field again in September 1930 he had the task of completing the junction of the Great Salween and Mong Hsat Series with the Siamese work, for which 8 stations remained to be observed and further the connection and measurement of the base and certain essential astronomical observations at the base and contiguous stations. He had also to supervise the work of an assistant whose task was to effect the short connection near Mergui. He set to work with his usual zeal and in spite of spells of unsatisfactory weather he completed 7 of the stations early in December 1930. One station, Loi Hkio, only remained to be observed to complete the triangulation proper. It appears that he reached this station about mid-December. His last letter of 22nd December made the first reference to ill-health when he wrote that he had a temperature of 102° and was out of action for the present, but that he hoped to be fit again within four or five days.

A fortnight before this was received in Dehra Dun, came the telegram despatched from Mong Ping by his computer saying that he had died of double pneumonia on the night of 27th December 1930.

It appears that he had not troubled to take any medicine with him, although he had made adequate provision for medicine chests for his scattered detachment, and no doubt he relied on his strong constitution to carry him through. A few days before his death he wrote to Kengtung for help and advice ; but this was too late. His letter only reached the Mission Doctor on the 27th who kindly arranged for Rev. Dr. Buker to select a site for a grave and to conduct the burial service. CadelPs body had meantime been carried down to Mong Ping and there he was buried near the bungalow.

Any one who knew Cadell on his professional side will realise that it must have been a very bitter trial to him to become sick at a time when he was within sight of completing his main task. He had given his very best to carry out all that was entrusted to him ; but alas ! be must have over-taxed himself and paid scant heed to his own well-being. All who knew him were his friends and certainly the writer, under whom he was serving, reposed complete confidence in him. His death is a grief to all his colleagues.

The unfinished part of his work has now been completed by another officer. What a pity that poor Cadell could not know of this !

J. De Graaff Hunter

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