BOOK REVIEWS

THE TOTEM POLE AND A WHOLE NEW ADVENTURE.
TIBET'S SECRET MOUNTAIN
HIGH ACHIEVER
GHOSTS OF EVEREST.
TRANS-HIMALAYAN CARAVANS.
REGIONS OF THE HEART.
RUNNING A HOTEL ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD.
ULTIMATE HIGH.
LIFE ALONG THE SILK ROAD.
IN THE KINGDOM OF THE GODS
ASCENT & DISSENT.
EVEREST FREE TO DECIDE.
SHORT REVIEWS

THE TOTEM POLE AND A WHOLE NEW ADVENTURE. By Paul Pritchard. Pp 208, 8 b/w plates, 1999. (Constable, London, £16.99).

Paul Pritchard has recently set a couple of climbing book records. He is the first climbing author to win the prestigious Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature twice (in 1997 and 1999), and the first to win the Boardman Tasker Award and its Banff Mountain Book Festival North American equivalent in the same year. That said, this is all a bit ironic.

For it was with his prize money for his first book, Deep Play, that Paul took off on a world climbing spree which led him eventually to the base of the Totem Pole, a slender sea stack he coveted, off the Tasmanian coast. It was here his extreme climbing career ended abruptly when he was hit on the head by a falling boulder, incurring such terrible injuries that it was thought he might never speak or walk again. This, then, is not a book for the faint-hearted.

It begins with a nightmare hospital sequence, the aftermath of a quite superhuman rescue by Paul's climbing partner, Celia Bull, who had to haul him to a ledge single-handed and belay him before going for help. The whole book is shot through with vivid memories of earlier climbs. But this is essentially a book about losing the one thing in life which, up to then, mattered and finding a way to come to terms with 'a whole new adventure' of living. It is a story of enormous courage and determination and positive thinking.

In Deep Play Paul Pritchard showed that he is a natural, if idiosyncratic, writer with a sharp eye and a command of a kalei- descope of emotions. The Totem Pole shows us that self-pity is not among these. In his new book we share his pain at selling off his climbing gear, and his triumph at each step won in his battle to overcome hemiplegia, and we can relish the dark humour of his picture of life in a hospital rehabilitation unit in the north of England.

A year on from his accident, Paul has been back to Tasmania and walked out to the coastline to help make a film of the Totem Pole and he has also been lecturing in the States and Canada. Life is different, but it is still to be lived. The Totem Pole is a remarkable chronicle of a climber's triumph over adversity.

Maggie Body

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TIBET'S SECRET MOUNTAIN — The Triumph of Sepu Kangri. By Chris Bonington and Charles Clarke. Pp 254, colour photos, 7 maps, 1999. (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, £20.00).

Many of us dream about exploring the remoter mountain ranges of eastern Tibet Few actually have the patience, determination, diplomacy and sheer clout to turn those dreams into reality. Chris Bonington and Charles Clarke waited fourteen years from their first sighting from an aeroplane window before they finally set off to find a route up the massif northeast of Lhasa called Sepu Kangri. Now, after three consecutive expeditions to the mountain, with the summit still untrodden, they have produced a splendid example of that unfairly derided genre — the expedition book.

If you are looking for a blow-by-blow account of extreme technical manoeuvres, forget it. The man who made first ascents of Raven Gully, the Central Pillar of Freney, Changabang and The Ogre has no need to prove anything. If on the other hand you are inspired by the romance of travelling through remote country, of unlocking the secrets of a virtually unknown range far beyond the now familiar silhouettes of the Himalaya and of finding friendship with some of the most handsome nomadic people on earth, this book has all those things and more. The 1996 reconnaissance was a delightfully ad hoc affair. Bonington and Clarke had just a month to fly out to Tibet and find their mountain, helped by a tourist road map and a photograph found in a local landlady's handbag. Like most mountaineering decisions, the choice of the final route up the mountain was largely a matter of chance: the two men ran out of time for a thorough reconnaissance of the south side, so stuck with the north approach they had seen first. Returning a year later with a proper climbing expedition, they were defeated by unexpectedly bad weather. On a third try in 1998, the same happened again, although Scott Muir and Victor Saunders got within 150 metres of what had proved to be a most obstinately inviolate holy mountain.

The final photo in the book is of richly glowing autumnal foliage — an appropriate image to resonate with Bonington's own mellow acceptance of ageing. Turning back early on the final attempt to give the younger 'Ninja Turtles' a better chance, the old tortoise seems genuinely free from any hint of jealous resentment. The tone throughout the book is good-humoured and genial. You are reminded that, for all his ambition and professional success, Bonington really enjoys his expeditioning. His trips are fun to be on. Of course there are rows and, having myself been on expeditions with most of Bonington's cast, I enjoyed reading about the different characters' interactions, culminating in a splendidly acerbic high altitude confrontation on the last desperate attempt in 1998. Summing up the decision of the two protagonists to separate and follow different routes, Bonington remarks, not for the first time in the book, that climbing and the interplay of humans have never been based on logic. How true. One of the great strengths of all Bonington's books, starting nearly four decades ago with I Chose to Climb, is his ability to write engagingly about his own little weaknesses and foibles, both psychological and visceral. Sometimes, perhaps, he overdoes it, as in the abrupt opening of chapter 12: 'There was no time to wait. I just had to have a crap: there wasn't even time to put on any clothes.' Vintage Bonington. Charlie Clarke seems equally keen to share scatological concerns (not least Tibet's nasty dogs) and moments of bathos, such as catching scabies from a fourteen-year-old Tibetan girl in his sleeping bag (he was not in the bag simultaneously). He also shares much else besides. His impressions of Tibet (and Bonington's) go a little deeper than the normal unquestioning rejection of all things Chinese. You get the impression that a little flicker of light is beginning to shine from behind the inscrutable eyes of the occupying forces. This is not to suggest that he white-washes the Chinese occupation. Far from it. He just hints at subtleties.

On the third expedition, Charlie Clarke set out a month before the main party, to make his own exploration of the eastern approaches to the mountain with Elliot Robertson, who himself adds some witty, perceptive diary extracts. It is a fascinating account of a region virtually never seen before by westerners, recorded with lightness of touch and nice flashes of wit. I empathised with his frustration over the endless cranking up of solar chargers to send e-mails and participate in satellite press conferences. I cursed in sympathy when he had to waste endless hours wrestling on the telephone with intransigent internet 'Helplines' but then thought serves you right for taking all that junk with you — what's wrong with a biro and a sheaf of aerogrammes. The answer, apparently, is that today's serious expedition has to provide instant news and pictures. That technological glitz and cutting-edge immediacy is obviously appealing to sponsors. However, I can't help feeling that this book, with all its varied threads and different voices so skilfully edited together, provides a more full, rich and resonant impression of what expeditions are really all about.

Stephen Venables

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HIGH ACHIEVER : The Life and climbs of Chris Bonington. By Jim Curran. Pp 288, 16 b/w plates, 28 line drawings, 1999. (Constable, London, £18.99).

Chris Bonington has been the brand name of UK mountaineering for the past four decades. In 1996 his contribution was recognised with a knighthood in the UK New Year's Honours List. After making his mark in the Alps in the late 'fifties, it is to the Himalaya that he has chiefly devoted his climbing life, mounting the mega-expeditions that made the first ascents of Annapurna South Face and Everest SouthWest Face, then graduating to smaller trips with friends — sometimes with this journal's Editor — to the Kinnaur or Kumaon or Kishtwar or, more recently, into Tibet to indulge his fascination with Sepu Kangri.

True, Bonington has written about his climbs himself and at length. He has produced three volumes of autobiography, as well as books about his major expeditions. So why is there a need for this authorised biography by climbing cameraman and mountain historian, Jim Curran?

First, because it gives us a different view of the man in the public gaze. We meet the insecure wartime child brought up by a single parent, forced to stand on his own feet and cope from an early age. Things did not drop onto a plate for the young Bonington. Curran's book puts a perspective on his early insecurity and his standing slightly apart from the climbing social hurly-burly. Then High Achiever also offers a microcosm of mountaineering development since the second world war. Bonington's career mirrors the changes from the siege-style expeditions to the 8000-metre peaks in the early 'seventies to the laid back, less structured — more enjoyable — later forays to Panch Chuli II or Rangrik Rang or Drangnag-Ri.

Jim Curran knows his subject well, having accompanied him on many trips as expedition climbing cameraman and film-maker, a good position from which to watch the leader in action. Curran pins down the pitfalls and agonising of leadership and analyses the testing moments of climbing with such arrant individualists as Don Whillans or Doug Scott. He observes the Bonington fascination with high tech gadgetry, and the Bonington changes of mind which are as legendary as the Bonington snore. One of the best raconteurs around the British climbing scene, Curran has an unerring eye for the ridiculous moment, but at base a real affection and respect for his subject, founded in Bonington's unflagging enthusiasm and total commitment to climbing.

In his Foreword, Reinhold Messner writes: 'Chris Bonington chases neither records nor grades. He belongs to a rare group of people who lead the way and can walk by themselves — still maintaining the awe and inquisitiveness of a child.' It is this special quality of mountain magnetism which Jim Curran captures in this enormously readable, entertaining and informative biography.

Maggie Body

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GHOSTS OF EVEREST. By J. Hemmleb, L. Johnson, E. Simonson. Pp. 205, Illus. 1999 (Macmillan, London, £ 20).

Subtitled 'The authorised story of the search for Mallory and Irvine' this is one of a number of books which have appeared following the revival of interest in a 75-year-old mystery with the publication in 1986 of The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine by T. Holzel and A. Salkeld, recently revised and re-issued; also Last Climb by D. Breashears and A. Salkeld, The Lost Explorer by C. Anker and D. Roberts, Lost on Everest by P. Firstbrook of the BBC, and a re-print of D. Robertson's biography of George Mallory first published in 1969; apart from a novel entitled Death on Everest by Graham Hoyland. The text of the book is the work of a professional writer, W. E. Nothdurft, based on the story told to him by the expedition leader Eric Simonson, and also by Jochen Hemmleb, who as chief researcher provided the original inducement for its launching, and by Larry Johnson who coordinated its organisation and the raising of sponsorship. The BBC provided a small team; but their contract terms initially, and their role subsequently, were often sources of contention. Graham Hoyland of the BBC, who had to return early owing to ill-health, had hoped to find the pocket camera which his great-uncle T. H. Somervell had loaned to Mallory for the final climb.

At 43, Simonson, a mountain guide for 26 years and founder of a company of guides in Washington state has led 70 expeditions, of which 20 have been to the Himalaya including Everest (6 times) which he climbed in 1991; he is described as the most experienced expedition organiser in the USA. For his 12-man team he chose a core of five expert high-altitude climbers, average age 32, all of whom were guides. The expedition appears to have been a model of good planning and organisation. There were no crises or mishaps, and no conflicts between individuals. With the climbing group consisting of seasoned professionals, a sensible balance was maintained between personal freedom and collective responsibility. Proof was given of their respect for mountaineering values when they assisted Russel Brice, the New Zealand leader of one of the dozen other expeditions on the North side of Everest, in a successful operation to rescue a badly-frostbitten Ukranian climber.

The expedition's purpose was to search for the body or bodies of two climbers lost on Everest in 1924, and to discover evidence indicating whether they had climbed to the top. Two important clues were available. The hard evidence was Andrew Irvine's ice-axe found by British climbers 9 years later lying 60 feet below and 250 yards east of the First step on the N.E. ridge; and Noel Odell's last view of the two climbers ascending high up on the ridge at almost 1 p.m. on the day they disappeared. The 'soft' evidence was the sighting in 1975 by a Chineese climber at about 8100 m near his party's Camp 6 of a body which he presumed to be English, lying as though asleep, a cheek damaged probably by bird-pecking. This seems a story of uncertain accuracy as it was indicated by him in 1979, the day before he died in an avalanche, to a Japanese climber, although neither spoke the other's language. Based upon these and other clues, Hemmleb the expedition's historical adviser, calculated the possible location of a search-area on the North face below the fall-line of Irvine's ice axe and the Chinese 1975 camp, the position of which, however, was not precisely known.

The search began, and ended, the day after the climbing team reached their Camp 6 at 8200 m. Five climbers scanning the Face in five separate directions on slopes 'where a slight misstep could turn you into another victim'. 'Passing a graveyard of mangled, frozen bodies ... a collection zone for (today's) fallen climbers' they stumbled upon Mallory's body at the lower edge of a terrace which dropped 2000 m down to the main Rongbuk glacier. He had lain there for 75 years frozen to the ice, his arms raised above him, his hands clenching the slope in an apparent effort to brake his fall. The body, disturbed for almost 3 hours by a compelling search for as much evidence as could be gathered, was then covered with stones, and a short burial service was recited. 'It seems an odd thing to say' one of them remarked, 'but I don't think any of us wanted to leave him.'

Eight days after their return to base camp with the personal effects recovered from Mallory's body, a party of six (three of whom had previously climbed Everest) returned to the North Col. On 17 May two reached the summit, accomplishing a rare free ascent of the formidable 30 m Second step via an off-width crack to the left of the Chinese ladder. The cliff was given an American grading of 5.8-5.10 (the upper end of difficulty for a dedicated climber). The oxygen-assisted ascent had taken 17 hours from their Camp 6 (situated at about the same height and position as that in 1924) to the summit and back.

There are clues, some new, others already known, to be drawn from the findings of the 1999 Search expedition, but no firm conclusions. Odell repeatedly confirmed, in the face of unbelievers, that his last view of Mallory and Irvine ascending a section of the N.E. ridge at 12.50 hrs on 8 June 1924 was fact and not illusion. Other circumstantial evidence relates to the reported Chinese sighting of an 'English' body high up on the North face in 1975; the 1933 recovery of Irvine's ice- axe near the First step, and of a torch and folding lantern inside the remains of the 1924 Camp 6; an empty oxygen cylinder found in 1999 below the First step identifiable as one of those which Mallory and Irvine would have carried on their final climb; the opinion of those who free-climbed the Second step that a rock climber of Mallory's competence and determination could have done so; the recollection of Mallory's daughter (who wrote the Foreword to this book) that her father carried a picture of her mother which he meant to place on the summit of Everest (neither the picture nor Somervell's pocket camera were found on Mallory's body); remnants of broken rope found attached to Mallory's body, and in his pockets a pair of snow goggles and straps for holding an oxygen mask to the face, indicating that neither were in use at the time he fell.

The finding of Mallory's body poses as many questions as it answers, and almost as many opinions have been raised as there are those who raise them. It is surprising how many dogmatic pronouncements have been made, some of which are patently absurd. Climbers of the Search expedition expressed mostly differing views about what they thought might or might not have happened to Mallory and Irvine before or after they did or did not reach the summit of Everest. They were, however, unanimous in their admiration for their astonishing strength and courage. Was it not Mallory who had written a few years earlier, 'One must conquer, achieve, get to the top. One must know the end to be convinced that one can win the end - to know that there is no dream that mustn't be dared'.

A few quibbles. Page 13. Mallory and Irvine's departure for their final summit attempt was not a 'do or die' stunt. E. F. Norton had complete faith in Mallory. 'I knew Mallory's thoughts and intentions, for I had discussed our prospective climbs with him a score of times, and on one point he had most definitely made up his mind - that as leader of a party the responsibility lay heavily on him to ensure a return to safety.' (The Fight for Everest 1924 p. 148). Four days earlier, Norton had turned back from his highest point, descending all the way to the North Col at 9.30 p.m. in darkness, recalling his descent with Mallory and Somervell in 1922 to the same camp arriving in total darkness after 11 p.m. Page 75. Whilst in 1999 the leader 'recruited' the head lama of Rongbuk monastery to the expedition's base camp for a blessing ceremony, in 1924 the whole party was hosted by the head lama and given his blessing at the monastery two weeks after their arrival at base camp. He had been unwell when they first arrived; he neither refused to see them, nor to put them off with a 'cheerless' message. Page 116. It is highly unlikely that the photograph represents the view of the N. E. ridge as seen by Odell on 8 June 1924. His account states that he was at 26,000 feet, half-way between Camps 5 and 6, when he saw Mallory and Irvine, adding that the Second step 'appears a short distance from the base of the final pyramid.' (p. 130 The Fight for Everest 1924). Odell was unaware of any 'third' step; he is likely at the time to have been standing in a position near to where the photograph on page 136 was taken (which bears a close resemblance to the picture facing p. 210 in The Assault on Everest 1922), and he would not have seen the view shown in the telephoto on page 151. Page 176. The assumption that Mallory and Irvine each carried 3 oxygen cylinders on their final climb is at variance with Mallory's note to Odell which stressed the heavy burden of carrying two; three would certainly have endangered their security on difficult rock above 8500 m. It is regrettable that the expedition showed a lack of sensitivity by releasing to the world's press pictures of Mallory's body without regard for the feelings of members of his family. Having committed the body to a decent burial so that Mallory wouldn't be bothered ever again, two members of the party returned 2 weeks later to uncover the body in order to extend their search.

The need seemingly to justify the success of Search expedition by providing a detailed scenario at the end of the book of how Mallory and Irvine ended their lives, is superfluous and pointless. Given their overall discoveries, much of the summing up might have been better left unsaid. That Mallory and Irvine succumbed to a fall from high on Everest has been established long ago. The precise details of their climb cannot and will not ever be known. Surely it would seem wiser to leave it at that.

The pictorial record adds value to this well-produced book. One is not aware of having seen before, through a climber's eyes, such ample details of all the main features that form the upper part of the North side of Everest, accompanied by stage by stage illustrations of the final climb to the top, all suitably placed within the text.

Trevor Braham

Think of Everest and the first names that come to mind are likely to be those of Hillary and Tenzing, the first persons to reach the top on 29th May 1953. Think again, and the chances are that the names Mallory and Irvine will spring forth. The first pair made history; the second, legend. Missing for 75 years since they disappeared at a great height on 8th June 1924, they left behind a tantalizing mystery: did they reach the summit?

The legend is now in the process of becoming history. This book is the first account to become available in India of the expedition which last summer found the remains of George Mallory lying exposed on the northern slopes of the mountain where he had come to rest, evidently alive, after a long fall. It is described as the 'authorised story of the search' for the missing pair. A foreword Mallory's daughter, Clare Millikan, describes the book as a 'compelling and step- by-step' recounting of both expeditions, the attempt in 1924 and the search in 1999.

The basic facts about Mallory and Irvine are well known. The 'two valiant men of Cheshire' as their memorial in Cheshire Cathedral describes them, disappeared into the mists of Everest not too far from the summit. The last person to see them alive, Noel E. Odell, thought he glimpsed them in a brief break in the clouds above the most difficult part of the climb, 'going strongly' towards the top. Odell later admitted he may have been wrong about their location, and the great mystery was born about how far up they reached.

Ghosts is, actually, a cleverly put together and fascinating account, alternating chapter by chapter between the two expeditions, tracing the attempt and the search slowly up the mountain. It is profusely illustrated with contemporary pictures and old, an extremely well produced volume. And it tells an incredible story. Years earlier, a Chinese climber had described to a Japanese colleague his discovery of an 'old English dead' in a sitting position on the upper slopes of Everest. The Chinese climber died in an avalanche the next day, and nothing more was heard of the matter for several years. But Everest enthusiasts, including some members of the search expedition, never lost sight of this slight clue. Some relics had been discovered earlier: Irvine's ice axe in 1933 and an oxygen bottle by an early British expedition in 1991. What was needed to resolve the mystery was the camera that Mallory was believed to be carrying. And, of course, the bodies, which might tell a tale.

Conrad Anker, the American climber, who found Mallory, and his colleagues were actually looking for Andrew Irvine. Mallory was the tough, competent mountaineer, a hero even in his time who was described as having the body of a Greek God. It would have been the inexperienced Irvine who would have fallen to disaster. It took them time to realize with a shock that the body they had discovered was not Irvine, who might be still sitting where the Chinese climber found him, but the great man himself.

The find triggered off a controversy, especially in Britain where the publication of photographs of Mallory's body for money was seen to be sacrilegious. Later, the expedition members acknowledged that this was a mistake, and once it became clear that they had treated Mallory's remains with great reverence, the controversy died down.

Not so the great riddle. Climbers familiar with the northern side of Everest have opined that given the times, the distances and the equipment with Mallory and Irvine, it is extremely unlikely that they reached the summit. But till the camera is found the mystery will remain. And why not? For, as Mallory's daughter writes, 'perhaps it is more interesting that way!'

Suman Dubey

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TRANS-HIMALAYAN CARAVANS. By Janet Rizvi, Pp. 359, 13 b/w plates, 4 maps, 1999. (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, Rs. 695).

This is a book long waiting to be written, the fascinating story over centuries of the world's toughest trade routes; the courage, the enterprise, and the ingenuity of Himalayan and trans-Himalayan traders. This book is largely about the western sector, with Ladakh and Leh as the focal centre between Yarkhand in the north and Hoshiarpur in the south, between the wild tribal country west of the Indus and Lhasa in the east. The story of this trade in the central and eastern Himalaya awaits another Janet Rizvi. Much has been made of the 'Great Game' between Britain and Russia in the political arena of this region. It was high time someone wrote about the courage and enterprise of small traders and transport men with pack animals, the sustained effort of centuries of unknown and forgotten Columbuses, and beyond one sailing.

When the editor of the Himalayan Journal asked me to review the book, I readily accepted, partly out of admiration for Janet Rizvi's pioneering work, and partly because my earlier years touched this world of which she writes, in the eastern sector directly, and in the central sector indirectly. With the transfer to the IAS in 1947-48, my posting in the IFS as Trade Agent in Gyantse in Tibet in 1947 lapsed. In 1957, in a humbler capacity, the reviewer was one of the last of Janet Rizvi's traders in this old trade 'conducted largely on the backs of pack animals' before it came to an end in the next few years; leading a caravan of 20 mules with a trader's passport in four languages (English, Hindi, Tibetan and Chinese) from Gangtok over the Nathu la along the Lhasa route as far as the Chinese PLA would permit. The scene was a repetition of the American enterprise in the mid-West of America, a century earlier, largely propelled by the four- fifths silver dollar of Kuomintang cleverly used by the communists to invite goods for their settlements in Tibet. Then, in a Nanda Devi outer wall traverse in 1959, from Milam in Kumaon to Joshimath in Garhwal, over half a dozen Indo-Tibetan passes, it was fascinating to hear the tales of our Milam muleteers who, between 13 and 20 years of age, had traded with Gartok in C. Tibet.

But to revert to the review of this book. First, it is the result of a combination of traditional research from past written accounts of travellers and explorers, to the unique oral history of the lost generation of those who took part in this trade in the western sector. For H.C. members, it will be encouraging to read in 'Acknowledgments', 'the most comprehensive collection of published original sources was the library of the Himalayan Club', which the reviewer was able to house in the India International Centre library about thirty years ago. It is a testimony of a scholar to that precious asset the Club has saved, built, and nurtured all these decades. The book is well served with maps of the trade routes. Apart from glossary, sources, notes, reference, and index for scholars, those with inclinations towards economic studies of this unaccounted trade will find valuable appendices of weights and measures, the value of the rupee, and the estimates of trade. Though the author is the first to caution that these figures should not be treated literally, as if coming out of a research bureau. They come from the memories of old people not given to statistics, and from earlier guesstimates of travellers, and they need to be read as just that, the best guesstimates. The efforts required for these is no less than from modern organisations of statistical research. They give a fair idea of volumes and values; most important, the valuable contribution of this trade to those whose lands could not provide for more than half the year's food and subsistance, and still had to pay taxes and levies on the lawless roads. Customs of trust between traders helped to make life possible in these lawless regions in lawless times. The black and white illustrations could have been a lot better, as the coloured ones are.

The general reader who may find himself in deep, detailed waters of each trade route, and the many oral accounts of many traders, will find the Introduction itself fascinating, wide canvas resume of the fabled trades of Inner Asia in silk, spices, salt, wool, even sophisticated glassware and china, between the empires and trading cities of the ancient world from Rome to China. Those difficult caravan routes over high mountains, passes, glaciers, and deserts, hid epics of human enterprise in trade, which history books only touch at the margins. Even Francis Younghusband envied 'the travelling merchant of Central Asia...their free, independent, wandering life..... always interesting to talk to, intelligent, shrewd, full of information....very cosmopolitan.... with a quiet, even temperament and breadth of idea which makes them very charming company'. And a mountaineer of the reputation of Shipton found it hard to believe how trade could be sustained over such difficult mountain regions as the Karakoram.

The chapters on Routes, Zanskar, Leh-Lhasa route, on Trans- Himalayan trade unfolds that centuries-old epic of human endeavour around the famous Silk Route, with its feeder trade routes from all directions of the compass, in the centuries before steamships. How mules, horses, and camels crossed high passes between 3700 m and 5700 m, how they traversed long distances with little fodder and little water, how the 'Kiraiyakash', the men behind the animals, managed the world's highest and hardest routes, generation after generation for centuries, and yet showed the characteristics described by Younghusband and others; this is the epic quality of that long heroic story now unearthed in so much detail by Janet Rizvi. On the human side behind the hazards of nature and rules, the human relationships behind such different people, of trust, of shared hospitality and cultures is no less remarkable. And all beyond today's derided 'profit motive'. There is a world of philosophy behind one simple sentence of a Zanskar trader, Haji Razak: 'By our helping each other that's how the world carried on'. If I was Secretary-General, I would adopt this simple line as the UN's motto.

The chapter of the Pashm trade, and the entire story down to the mid twentieth century could be summed up as 'Pashm and Politics', with all the vicissitudes of Asia's violent history. At the fag end, in the first half of the twentieth century alone, these adventurous traders and 'Kiraiyakash' had to face the consequences, even in the heart of Asia, of what may be described as three distant revolutions, the Chinese of 1911 and 1949, the Russian of 1917, the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, two World Wars, and the final coup de grace of the 1962 India-China conflict. By then a thousand years of history and life-styles had changed for them, and the author touches on that change in the last chapter, 'The Old Order Changeth'.

On a personal note, what I looked forward to and missed, was a descriptive account of the earlier festive, 'mela' experiences of these traders in C. Asia, which I heard with such pleasure from my Milamese muleteers at Gartok in our 1959 journey round Nanda Devi. That may have added a colourful dimension to the joyful mingling of tough men over song, dance, drink, and the unique quality of an Asian 'mela' of many cultures of old times.

Janet Rizvi has collected and saved these wonderful pages of history just in time, before the last human links die out. For that, all readers, especially members of the Himalayan Club, can count their blessings. As an ex-historian, I salute Janet Rizvi for saving this precious jade of C. Asian history before it was lost forever. If institutes of trade and management have any imagination, if they wish to know what enterprise was really like before the days of plush offices, they should make this book prescribed reading, if not a case study on international trade; not without lessons for our times, lessons of organisation, trust, hardship, resilience, courage, and human relations beyond profit and loss.

Aspi D. Moddie

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REGIONS OF THE HEART. The Triumph and Tragedy of Alison Hargreaves. By David Rose and Ed Douglas. Pp. 289, 16 b&w illustrations, 1999. (Michael Joseph, London £ 16.99).

I don't know whether the irony was intentional, but the beautifully stark dustjacket picture on Regions of the Heart depicts the scoured avalanche slope where Nick Estcourt died in 1978. Seventeen years later Alison Hargreaves was to die on the same mountain, K2. If it had not been for that abrupt, brutal curtailment to a burgeoning career she would have written her own book and there would have been no need for this biography — at least not yet. But, you might say, do we really 'need' a life account?

When Hargreaves made her unsupported, oxygenless ascent of Everest in May 1995, the world's media feted her; three months later, when she lay dead on K2, unable to answer back, they savaged her memory in an orgy of sanctimonious schadenfreude. She had overreached herself. Her hubris had been punished. She had deserted her children. She was a bad mother. She was a woman foolishly playing a man's game. And so on, ad nauseam, most vehemently from the pens of female columnists. They had a field day and the public noticed. Four years later, the woman in the street still knows the name Alison Hargreaves, and is curious to know what she was really like. Now the public has an answer based on meticulous research and understanding, instead of ignorant prejudice. David Rose and Ed Douglas are both seasoned mountaineers; they are also experienced journalists and they know how to illuminate for lay people the arcane climbing world where Hargreaves herself had to fight so hard to be recognized. They have clearly gone to great pains to interview her family, close friends and business partners — and made copious use of her prolific diaries — to present a portrait that is sympathetic without degenerating into hagiography. Having climbed and skied with Hargreaves a few times without knowing her particularly well, I was eager to see what type of person would emerge. Well, the book confirms the little I knew — that she was an extremely competent, organized climber; that she was highly ambitious; that she was (contrary to the carpings of the censorious columnists) a devoted and skillful mother; that her marriage had been on the rocks for some time — and reveals much, much more. The British climbing world, still aggressively protective of its male ethos even in the eighties and nineties — was often reluctant to recognise her achievements. I certainly had not realised the sheer extent of her solo gritstone climbing or her many alpine 'grandes courses', nearly all of them achieved in fast times. Nor realised how well she did on Kantega in 1986. Nor had I registered the sacrifice she made, in the winter of 1992, waiting to help another team down the Hornli Ridge of the Matterhorn, getting her toes frostbitten in the process. Nor had I realised how many times she retreated wisely from the North Face before succeeding solo in 1993. The 1993 solo was part of her bold bid to climb the six classic Alpine north faces in a single summer. Douglas and Rose rightly take her to task over the rather woolly definitions used — for instance her choice of the Lauper route, rather than the true Eigerwand, for the Eiger — but they point out that the hype nearly always emanated from her husband, who emerges from these pages as a self-deluded, domineering bully. Two years later, when Everest made her a truly public figure, she tried to distance herself from him and was, according to the authors, furious at his hijacking of press relations, embarrassed by the fatuous statements about her being the greatest climber of all time. She was not the greatest climber of all time, but she was, as the authors conclude, an ordinary woman with an extraordinary talent. Most extraordinary to my mind was her boldness - in particular setting off with the family in tow to try and solo the alpine north faces, in a desperate bid to raise her profile and earn enough money to drag her family out of bankruptcy, and in the process try to escape her own depressed sense of failure. To succeed — Lauper route notwithstanding — in a summer of uncommonly awful weather, showed remarkable courage. By becoming a professional climber Hargreaves had at times to experience 'her blessed escape become a necessary chore' to the point that on K2 she was torn between her desperate longing for her children and her belief that success would secure her future with them as a single mother. The tragedy, as her close friends saw it, was that she did not need to go to K2 — her recognition and her potential earning power were already assured. The final doomladen pages make painful reading, but they are also suffused with the understanding that even on K2 there were moments of the kind of exultation which took her to the mountains in the first place.

There is also, in the Everest chapter, confirmation of a growing confidence and serenity in the last two years of her life. I hope that Alison Hargreaves's family are pleased with Regions of the Heart. It does open wounds and reveal an inner turmoil that few suspected, but it does so in a sympathetic manner. It is a moving story and I commend it to all those people in the outside world who were inspired by Hargreaves's achievements. I also commend it to those inside the parochial confines of the climbing community who tended to belittle her achievements; this book might make them think again. And I would make it compulsory reading for any newspaper columnist planning to pontificate about women mountaineers.

Stephen Venables

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RUNNING A HOTEL ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD. Five Years In Tibet. By Alec Le Sueur. Pp. 255, 15 colour pictures, 1998. (Summersdale Publishers Ltd, West Sussex, $ 12.99).

This is a rip-roaring comedy of a book. It will have you in splits from page one. Alec Le Sueur spent five extraordinary years running a five-star hotel in Lhasa, Tibet. Against a hauntingly beautiful Himalayan landscape, Le Sueur spins a fantastic tale of this fabled land almost impenetrable for most ordinary mortals. After Hienrich Harrer, whose book, Seven Years In Tibet became a gospel on Tibet, there has been nothing as exciting until this book came along. It is different. It demythifies the aura of Lhasa with affection and humour. The book studies the politics of the country as well, making no apologies for views expressed.

The opening chapters, when Sueur has his first taste of the subcontinent, is hilarious, even for us Indians who are perfectly used to delayed flights, dirt and old airplanes. Check this out; it is extracted from an article on Chinese stewardesses entitled 'Youth Glistening in the Blue Sky' that Sueur found in the CAAC inflight magazine:

Disregarding dirt, is a distinguishing feature of stewardess of Southwest Airlines. A passenger had incontinence of faeces, stewardess, Zhu Jiang Yin and Tan-GouPing, helped this passenger without hesitation. The passenger was so moved full of tears.

Underlying the story, is a heartwarming and sensitive understanding of the Tibetan people as a separate identity except of course that they are genetically linked with the Chinese where rash taxi driving is concerned! Interspersed with funny observations that warm your heart is a well-researched book on the people and land of Tibet. The fragile political situation notwithstanding, here are people who celebrate life and spiritualism in the face of physical hardship. They deserve to be free.

The tongue-in-cheek look at mountaineers, particularly those that attempt Chomolungma and stay at the Holiday Inn in Lhasa on their way out is most amusing: 'Curiously, the distance they reached from the summit diminishes in direct proportion to the length of time spent in the hotel bar, the number of Tsing Tao beers consumed, and the chances of scoring with easily impressed tourists.' The obsession with yaks and everything yak related, the unbelievable Miss Tibet competition, insurmountable communication problems and Chinese bureaucracy are some of the episodes in this 'Fawlty Towers' of Tibet as the jacket says.

Along with Alec Le Sueur, we live through five years in Tibet, through sweeping changes and growing urbanisation. We watch as the new Karmapa is crowned and as the seasons change. We get an inside view of what running a hotel on the roof of the world involves. It is a must read whichever way you look at it.

Nandini Purandare

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ULTIMATE HIGH. My Everest Odyssey. By Goran Kropp with David Lagercrantz. Pp 227, color prints 21, color maps 4, (Discovery Books, New York, nps.).

To paraphrase the book in one word, 'unputdownable' would somehow achieve the objective. Goran Kropp's inhuman ordeal to transport every bit of his expedition from Sweden to the top of Everest would have seemed far-fetched but for his sincerity and abject disregard at creating a self-halo of superhumanness. The book that reads like an adventure thriller is a modified biography of the protagonist with his Everest triumph serving as the backdrop. The writing is racy, captivating, and disarmingly honest and grips the reader's interest from the very beginning.

Today, only the very naive would be ignorant of the third pole and its impact on mankind's imagination. It is often debated if anything is still left to be achieved on the mighty flanks of Everest. With nearly 1000 summiters till date, man has done everything possible to immortalise their episode on the Everest saga. With meticulous research, Goran Kropp realised that no one had ever travelled entirely from their home till the highest point on earth exclusively under their own power—without any support of any kind. A visit to a psychiatrist should have preceded the embarkation on a trial so arduous, but with characteristic masochism, Goran marshalled his resources one sunny morning in October 1995 and pedaled-off from Stockholm towards the mystic land of Nepal.

He journeyed the thousands of miles, lugging 284 lbs of load over diverse terrain and cultures, through hostilities, revolutions, arid deserts and stone-pelting crowds. On one occasion, he was even shot at. Escaping miraculously from all the upheavals, he pedaled on regardless. Where roads ended, he begins his trek towards the Everest base camp. Once again he shouldered the complete load of 161 lbs and tottered away into the mountains. As one reads his agonising progress it's difficult to remain apathetic. Subject to ridicule from other expeditions and natives alike, the strange procession of Goran Kropp and his paraphernalia wound its way along with his girl friend Renata, who was a constant benign presence by his side.

1996 went on to register as one of the worst years on Everest claiming many lives including that of legendary Rob Hall and Scott Fisher (refer Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air). Many more lost their limbs in their puerile endeavor to deface the summit of Everest with the help of guides and Sherpas. Commercialisation of mountains have been clouded by severe criticisation ever since. That year, complete chaos reigned on Everest. Teams and individuals from every conceivable background and credibility wanted a piece of the summit. Disgruntle- ment, bitter competitiveness, blatant display of wealth, were all in order of the day. Amidst such pandemonium, Goran lauched his offensive with all the single-mindedness of a nimble matador. What happened thereafter cannot be chronicled or replicated within the scope of a review. Goran Kropp's first attempt that ended barely a 100 mtrs short of the summit followed by the tragic loss of Rob Hall and Scott Fisher, and Goran's eventual triumph (without supplemental oxygen) when he finally straddled the world with one half in Tibet and another in Nepal has to be read in its entirety to appreciate the magnitude of his feat.

The book is a must-read for every individual who has ever visioned himself atop Everest and has given a serious thought to the sport of mountaineering.

Lt. Commander Satyabrata Dam

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LIFE ALONG THE SILK ROAD. By Susan Whitfield. Pp 242, 12 color plates, 13 b/w plates, 26 b/w line drawings, 1 map, 1999. (John Murray, London, £ 19.99).

During the first millenium after Christ, a peculiar amalgamation of variegated cultures, traditions and beliefs pulsated along the greatest trade route in the history of mankind — the Silk Road. The pre- Islamic Silk Road, before the advent of maritime trade, had a predominant flavour of China, India and Tibet from the East and Babylonia and Greece from the West. The greatest civilisations of the era, possessing wealth and scientific knowledge beyond imagination, fought each other for dominance of the serpentine trail while the rest of Europe cowered under the 'Dark Age'.

It is nigh impossible to tell when the miraculously fine, shimmering, sensuous fabric spun from the cocoon of the Bombyx caterpillar first reached the west from China, but it invaded the very heart of the Roman Empire. The Silk Road was born between China and Parthia, on the Iranian plateau that was one of the most voracious foreign consumers of the gossamer. It was rumored that even the most nimble- footed caravan took 200 days to traverse the route. Geographically it was no single road, but rather an obfuscated web of caravan tracks that threaded through some of the loftiest mountains and harshest deserts on earth. The network's main eastern terminus was housed at the Chinese capital (Tang Dynasty) of Ch'ang-an, to the west, the route divided at Dunhuang, one branching into the dreaded Taklamakan desert to the north through Turfan, Kucha and Aksu, while the other turned south via Khotan and Yarkand. The two branches united again at Kashgar, from where the trail pierced through numerous passes to cross the Pamir and Tian Shan.

Beyond the mountains, the Ferghana valley led west through Kokand, Samarkand and Bukhara, past Merv and on to Iran, the Levant and Constantinople. Somewhere in the middle, major tributaries headed south over the Karakoram to India and north via the Ili river across the Saka Steppes.

The Silk Road heralded an unprecedented trade, but its true glory and immortality were the result of the interchange of ideas, technologies and religions that occurred among the different cultures that used it. Sogdian merchants traded in Baltic amber, lapis from Afghanistan, and wool from Mongolian steppes. Religious savants preached among the nomads to ensure converts. Peddlers, miracle-workers, courtesans, bards and diviners displayed their wares in market places and temple fairs.

The book under review recounts the life along the Silk Road from 750 to 1000 AD through the lives of some of these people and their surroundings in which they lived. A Sogdian merchant, a Tibetan soldier, a nomadic Uighur Turk, a Chinese princess on her way to marry a Turkic Khagan, a Kashmiri mendicant, a courtesan, a Buddhist nun from Dunhuang, an ailing widow, a Chinese erudite, and a master artist from Dunhuang. Based on facts discovered from recent excavations and rare scrolls, the characterisation of these people bring alive the forgotten splendours of the now ruined and sand covered desert towns and their inhabitants.

An intense effort has been made to simplify the complex history, rendering it comprehensible, and the author has deliberately concentrated only on a few key political events and provinces. Though all the biographical sketches are equally riveting, the Uighur Turk's story ('The Horseman's Tale') captures best the tremendous diversity of the region and the era. 'The Merchant's Tale' clearly indicates the universal and eternal flavor of a businessman's instinct.

Though a credible effort at reviving history, the book perhaps fails to storm the general reader's fantasy. Too much has been squeezed into too less an arena. Besides, repetitive mention of some places has allowed some monotony to creep in. Such prejudice is understandable since Susan Whitfield is a world authority on Dunhuang. Her impeccable credentials deliver what she promises in the introduction — a deep and thorough insight into the intrigue of the Silk Road. Overall, we have a book here that needs to be chewed, pondered, and digested slowly — very slowly.

Lt. Commander Satyabrata Dam

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IN THE KINGDOM OF THE GODS: An Artist's Impression of the Emerald Valley. By Desmond Doig. Pp 246, 60 illustrations, 1999. (HarperCollins Publishers India, New Delhi, Rs 150).

It was the writer Sunanda Dutta Ray who said that Desmond had found his soul while he did an artist's impression of Calcutta. What Desmond Doig found as he sketched Kathmandu was happiness

The first line of the foreword goes thus : How true this rings when we browse through the book. There is sunshine in all the sketches although you cannot see it. The book is like a leisurely stroll through the mystical alleys of the fantastic town of Kathmandu.

Desmond Doig was a Renaissance man in the true sense. He spent his life creating. He was basically a journalist and adventurer who accompanied the Edmund Hillary expedition to Everest and searched for the Yeti and climbed Makalu among other things. He died in 1983. His friend, Dubby Bhagat, researched this book.

It is actually a collection of columns. Desmond Doig and Dubby Bhagat have documented local folklore, talking to people in the temples, villages and squares of Kathmandu. This is important, as legend, folktales, music and poetry are as important to the ethos of a place as history. Reading these essays makes one actually believe that gods walked in the valleys of Kathmandu and left behind a temple, shrine or stone every now and then. The sheer number of such places in the town is amazing. Pashupatinath, Patan, Bhaktapur and Swayambhunath are the famous ones but there are hundreds of forgotten ones that come alive in the pages of this book.

The true charm of the book, however, lies in the stories like The Toothache Tree, The Gorge of the Flaming Sword, Processions for a Grieving Queen, and such others. As a guide for anyone who is exploring Kathmandu, this book is a gem.

Nandini Purandare

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ASCENT & DISSENT. The South Africa Everest Expedition — the inside story. By Ken Vernon. Pp. 292, 37 colour illustrations, 1997. (Jonathan Ball, Johannesburg, nps). ISBN 1 86842 056 6.

EVEREST FREE TO DECIDE. The story of the first South Africans to reach the highest point on earth. By Cathy O'Dowd and Ian Woodall. Pp. 301, 56 colour illustrations, 1997. (Zebra Press, Sandton, nps). ISBN 1 86872 101 9.

The pre-monsoon May 1996 was a good month for Everest watchers and a bad one for Everest climbers. The South Africans succeeded in putting three members and three Sherpas on the summit. On the other hand, one member died, one was sacked, and the three most experienced climbers deserted from base camp. The expedition was surrounded by controversy from its inception; and the misgivings of many South Africans persist to this day.

The Mountain Club of South Africa did not endorse the expedition. It merely wished it well, and published in its 1996 Journal a bland account of the final push to the top. There was, and still is, a deafening Club silence about the expedition's conduct, politics, organisation and finances. Some people are not so reticent.

The then President, Nelson Mandela, was persuaded to bestow his prestigious patronage on the expedition. The major sponsor was the Sunday Times of Johannesburg, which sent Ken Vernon to report. In his book Vernon gives his version of events. He had the difficult task of obeying his employer while being denied the logistic support which the expedition had undertaken to provide.

Vernon tells us that the expedition leader, Ian Woodall, was a personality disordered and underfunded fraud who was determined to climb Everest. To raise funds he needed sponsorship on a grand scale. In the new South Africa, sponsors have to be seen to be politically correct. Therefore the expedition needed non-white and female climbers. There was no difficulty in finding a competent and experienced non-white male climber. To select the female climbers, a competition was organised on Kilimanjaro. Those short-listed were told that a final decision about who would be permitted to attempt the summit would be made at base camp. It subsequently became known that the coloured lady in the party was not named on the Government permit. In retrospect her function was to promote political correctness.

Despite the support of the Sunday Times, the expedition was still short of funds. One place on the climbing permit had been sold to a Frenchman for $65,000; and a group of paying trekkers, who rapidly became very disgruntled, and were taken to base camp.

When reading this account of the expedition by thel leader (Woodall) and his leading lady (O'Dowd), I wondered if the two books were about the same expedition. Their sanitised and politically correct version of events starts and finishes at base camp and, predictably, is notable for what it omits. Thus there is no mention of the disaffected three leading climbers who left the expedition at base camp, or of the expedition doctor who was sacked and who was forbidden to issue any medication without the leader's approval. The $65,000 client and the trekkers are also ignored. The Sunday Times receives no credit for its large investment. On the other hand it did get much publicity, if not of the kind it would have anticipated.

Nevertheless, two controversies are aired. We are told that when Woodall, while descending, met Herrod climbing alone late in the day, the latter was 'free to decide' for himself whether or not he should risk being benighted near the summit. This casual attitude is in direct contrast to the dictatorial leadership style which Vernon reports innumerable times; and no explanation is given for the change in policy.

On the other hand, Woodall has plausible explanations for his refusal to lend his radio and to assist with rescue at Camp 4. It would have been suicidal to have searched in such adverse conditions for climbers whose positions were unknown. It seems not unreasonable to refuse to lend the only working radio at Camp 4 to an unknown climber on the South Col at the request of an unidentified climber lower down.

There are two remarkable features of this sad chapter in Everest history. No one, not even the major sponsor, took the trouble to check Woodall's fictitious curriculum vitae. In particular he was not the experienced South African climber he claimed to be. And despite all the financial problems, disaffection, autocratic leadership style, inexperience and logistic inefficiencies, six people actually reached the top - but only five returned.

At the end of the day, it is a matter of ethics. Woodall did succeed in climbing the world's highest mountain - but did the end justify the means? He lost his official photographer by abandoning him to attempt the summit far too late in the day. He embarassed the President of South Africa. His foul-mouthed abuse and failure to cooperate with the other expeditions, even when rescues were being organised, alienated every other party on the mountain.

Read both books, and any other literature you can find on the May 1996 Everest disasters, and form your own conclusions. Many of us in South Africa have been embarassed by, and ashamed of, the antics of the leader of the 'first official South African Everest expedition'.

S. A. Craven.

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SHORT REVIEWS :
(By Nandini Purandare)

CHINA'S SHADOW OVER SIKKIM: The Politics of Intimidation. By G S Bajpai. Pp243, 1999. (Lancer Publishers and Distributors, New Delhi, Rs. 450).

This is an historical account, beginning in the mid nineteenth century, when the British began making inroads into Sikkim, and ending with the events of 1975, when Sikkim became the 22nd state of the Union of India. The author examines the Chinese advantage in the most vulnerable of India's borders i.e. Sikkim. It is also an interesting study of military strategy in inhospitable high altitude areas and therefore an ode to the men who guard our borders. The author, a high-ranking civil servant, has sensitively examined several issues leading to the long drawn border skirmishes and continuing Chinese aggression along with Tibet's role in the politics of this area. The background of the Younghusband expedition to Tibet, the issue of Sikkim-Tibet border demarcations, the study of Chinese propaganda and psychological warfare launched on the border are quite interesting. The book contains comprehensive appendices of treaties and other official regulations and valuable, but badly produced, pictures of border warfare. The crucial decade in Sikkim's history, i.e. during 1965-1975, the years of tension and political changes are dealt with briefly at the end. This is a dry but lucid account, necessary for the record.

KARGIL 1999 : Pakistan's Fourth War for Kashmir. Edited by Air Commodore Jasjit Singh. Pp 342, 1999. (Knowledge World, New Delhi, Rs. 430).

The editor and his colleagues are part of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis. With the recent Kargil war as the backdrop, these essays analyse the Indo Pak relationship in history. The covert and overt nuclearisation of Pakistan and India respectively, Siachen, and Taliban's influences are some of the major issues discussed in the book. The book also analyses the continuing military regime in Pakistan with Nawaz Sharrif's democracy. The writing on the wall is particularly telling: 'We apologise for this temporary democratic interruption. Normal martial law will be resumed shortly' (Graffiti on a Karachi wall, 1990, as quoted in the book).

The book concludes with Pervez Musharraf's takeover and a new dawn in the Indo-Pak 'romance'. Complete with chronology, appendix and index, the book is a treasure for researchers on the subject.

DIVINING THE DECCAN: A Motorbike to the Heart of India. By Bill Aitken. Pp 277, 1999. (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, Rs. 395).

What do you say about an author who has been a hero to many of us since childhood! He describes himself as one of the original hippies. In 1959, when Bill was in his twenties, he hitchhiked overland to India and ever since, continues his quest to find the true meaning of existence. This has taken him to all corners of the country on most modes of transport resulting in books most of us have enjoyed thoroughly. This time it is 'a motorbike to the heart of India'. If only books such as these were prescribed as textbooks!

Divining the Deccan is a fascinating account of Aitken's travels through the Deccan plateau. He has travelled in this region every year for the past twelve years. He has closely studied the religion, culture, the architecture, the geology, the geography, the history and the people of this region. The result is a labour of love. Just as a water diviner searches water, the author looks for nuances and flavours that make up this fascinating region, covering a part of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The title is apt in another sense as well; Aitken is definitely taken in by a quest for the divine and he seems to find it here in the Deccan.

ACROSS PEAKS AND PASSES IN KUMAUN HIMALAYA. By Harish Kapadia. Pp. 229, 61 colour and b/w illustrations, 13 maps, 1999. (Indus Publishing Co., New Delhi, Rs. 500).

ACROSS PEAKS AND PASSES IN GARHWAL HIMALAYA. By Harish Kapadia. Pp. 237, 58 colour and b/w illustrations, 15 maps, 1999. (Indus Publishing Co., New Delhi, Rs. 500).

ACROSS PEAKS AND PASSES IN HIMACHAL PRADESH. By Harish Kapadia. Pp. 240, 60 colour and b/w illustrations, 16 maps, 1999. (Indus Publishing Co., New Delhi, Rs. 500).

ACROSS PEAKS AND PASSES IN LADAKH, ZANSKAR AND EAST KARAKORAM. By Harish Kapadia. Pp. 271, 62 colour and b/w illustrations, 17 maps, 1999. (Indus Publishing Co., New Delhi, Rs. 600).

A series of four books based on author's earlier published books, now arranged as reference to each region. Rather useful references on History, rules for climbing, passes, rivers, nomenclature, list of all peaks, road distances and bibliography of books for each region are added. With photos and maps this is an excellent reference on each region.

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