CORRESPONDENCE

1. Sub-Himalayan Dietetics
2. The Accident on Panjtarni, 1932
3. Himalayan Route-Books
4. Note by the Editor

 

 

Sub-Himalayan Dietetics

The Editor,

The Himalayan Club Journal.

My dear Mason,

On the subject of Sub-Himalayan Dietetics that appeared in vol. iv of the Journal, Dr. J. H. Hutton has passed me the interesting suggestion that those bugs, which, 'having a spirit', produce a palsy in certain luckless Assamese gourmets, attain to their halo not by favour of the Nats but by virtue of a seasonal change in their vile bodies,³³ and it would therefore be to the point if I drew attention to a few matters regarding food-poisoning that I have culled from cookery- books and such-like literature.

One might recall that the Greenland shark and other creatures are said to be in toto noxious as food for Man, while on the other hand there are some that merely develop the condition of the curate's egg: examples of the latter being the garden-rhubarb with its poisonous leaves and succulent stems; the toads, and a tree-frog, Phyllobates chocoensis, that are all-glorious within but have a noxious cuticle; the larva of a beetle, Diamphida locusta, and a caterpillar, from the viscera of which certain aboriginals make arrow-poison; other caterpillars juicy enough within their hairy skin, which is irritant and may kill a horse; the drunken fish (Ostracontidae) which possess poisonous jelly-like masses near the tail, the creatures not being otherwise toxic: but such examples would not strictly conform to Dr. Hutton's point. It is the following that can be more fairly adduced in the matter.

As to fish, it has been long known that the balloon-fish, a species of Tetrodon, is poisonous (Japs commit suicide therewith), but that it varies considerably in this respect, only some individuals, or those caught at certain times of the year, being dangerous, and this limitation has been explained by the fact that the ovaries and testes alone contain the toxin. Similarly a periodicity in some poisonous properties of the barracouta is coincident with spawning, immature specimens being harmless; and the roe of the barbel also has a reputation for being poisonous. Then the sturgeons 'in certain parts' of the body are noxious, and the attainment of their maturity may be responsible.

Of other sea-creatures such as starfish and certain mussels, the spawn is also reputedly noxious.

There are equivocal cases, such as the reputed noxiousness of jacks at certain seasons in which also the spawn may be to blame, but this has not been definitely proved. Then the Clupea herrings have at times caused much sickness, and it is well known that oysters and other shell-fish 'out-of-season^’ may cause bowel-symptoms.

Philosophically it is easy to understand why there are so many instances of spawn having poisonous properties; they represent a measure for the survival of the species.

So much for the responsibility of the spawning season in the matter, and indeed we might have suspected that the attainment of years of discretion would confer on our bug the halo with which it has been credited.

Another category, however, is exemplified by the following incident. A family in Toulouse was poisoned by eating a dish of snails, and upon inquiry it was ascertained that the snails had been collected from a poisonous shrub. A snail's food was a man's poison. Analogous to this are the widespread reports that fish that have fed on certain shoals or reefs are usually poisonous, it being thought that this is due to their having fed on dead and decomposing corals or marine creatures. The herrings (Clupea), the jacks (Cerangidae) and barracouta have been specially cited in this respect. A case, too, has occurred in which mussels that have fed on sewage beds were toxic; that bacteria were not the immediate cause of the trouble was indicated by the rapidity with which symptoms supervened. Nevertheless a rapid appearance of symptoms does not always indicate an absence of infection in food; for instance, rye infected with ergot has its poison elaborated, and ready for action. When, however, infection in food is the direct cause of trouble, as for instance when the oyster is infected with typhoid, there is generally an incubation period in Man.

Finally, it may be mentioned that some creatures in the Tropics that are not devoured immediately after death become poisonous very rapidly: and from higher latitudes, to wit New Zealand, a friend tells me that eels left uneaten overnight in the light of the full moon are decidedly deleterious.

We may conclude then that the aboriginal ideas regarding bug- palsy may have some basis of truth, and that the creature may become toxic

(1) at maturity, or when laying eggs,

or (2) when it has fed on certain poisonous plants,

or (3) when it has not been eaten for some time after its death,

or (4) when it has had the bright full moon shedding her light upon its corpse.

 

The instances of fish becoming poisonous owing to devouring contaminated solid food does not apply to bugs because they only suck up fluid food from living tissues.

One should certainly not lightly dismiss as fantastic any such widespread belief as that under our notice: it is doubtless as credible as the 'Indian rope-trick⁵. I think, however, we are on safe ground in disputing the aboriginal explanation of their observations, to wit, that the palsy has something to do with the contents of 'the heart'.

I understand that our Editor now challenges me to say what these bugs, especially those with a spirit, taste like. I, however, definitely disclaim any interest in such a gustatory aspect of the subject. An acquaintanceship with an Oxford High Table has, I am afraid, vitiated his finer feelings. However, as he has chosen his platform, I must say that having once, while on tour, had a Bengal Violet mixed up with my Bully Beef, I am not going to tell him anything about Aspongopus mixed with Asparagus, and I have good reason to congratulate Dr. Henry Balfour on the instinctive discretion that he is determined shall guide him in the matter.

 

The following letter from Dr. Hutton to Dr. Strickland is also published, with the permission of the writer:

Dear Strickland,

Many thanks for your letter dated the 9th February 1933. I expect that the note which Balfour is to add about our experiments with boiled hornet grubs will be quite adequate, and I do not think that I have anything to add.³⁴ Is it not conceivable that the moon might affect the edibility of the smell-bug even during the life of the latter? I believe I am right in saying that the condition of certain edible molluscs in the Mediterranean varies according to the phases of the moon; I have a sort of feeling also that moonlight is polarized light, and that it has been found that polarized light has a potent effect on the germination of seed. Unfortunately I am too busy to look up the references, even if I could get at them, but it just occurs to me that the edibility of the bug might vary with the moon in life instead of after death. On Naga principles I suspect that the inedibility of overnight eels would be due to a rapid germination of life under the moon, as in bamboos and thatching palm, &c., cut at the full moon. These are certainly useless on account of their rapid decomposition under the attacks of insects, as any one in the Naga Hills will tell you, and as I have found to my cost, or rather to that of the Government. I have always put this down to the periodic hatching of insects, which I suggest coincides with the phases of the moon.

I have sometimes thought that if it could be shown, as so many primitive people believe, and as has generally been believed in antiquity (e.g. Pliny), that some forms of insect life hatched out with the full moon, and that the same principle is at work in the alleged susceptibility of vegetable seeds to polarized light, we should have an explanation of a whole heap of beliefs which are usually put down to superstition or sympathetic magic, but which seem to originate in primitive observations, very often much more acute than ours, particularly in the matter of plants on which primitive life is more dependent, and of bugs of all kinds to the attacks of which they are more subject.

I might add that there is a well-known edible fish in Naga Hill rivers, the roe of which if eaten produces (at any rate to me) a violent nausea. Some of my Naga friends, knowing I was partial to roe, once fed me on roes of this fish without warning me. After I had recovered they remarked casually, 'Oh yes, the roe of this fish usually does make people sick; we did not know whether the sahib would be sick or not'.

 

Dr. Henry Balfour, who has seen the above notes, comments as follows (after being duly warned that any statement made would be published):

My dear Mason,

Forgive this long-delayed reply to your letter. I have had so many things on hand of late that delay was enforced. Many thanks for letting me see the very interesting letters of Drs. Strickland and Hutton. I fear that I can add nothing in the way of new suggestions and cannot therefore offer a contribution to your interesting Journal. The problems dealt with have occupied enlightened minds through more than two millennia. Aristotle dilates (c. 330 b.c.) upon the seasonal poisonous qualities of certain fishes, &c., and tells us that the Pectens and the Spiny Lobster are at their best when egg-bearing, that the Squid, Cuttlefish, and Octopus are most excellent under similar circumstances, and that nearly all fish are good to eat during the early part of the gestation period, but, as time advances, some are good, others not. He goes on to say of the Maenis (? sprat) that when the period of gestation begins in the females, the males become black and mottled, and are unfit for food. But the Maenis and the Sturgeon are best when pregnant. The Glaucns (? goby) is edible whether in roe or not. Of fresh-water fish, he remarks, some, e.g. the Saperdis, are good to eat when egg-bearing, others, like the Glanis (cat-fish), are bad; adding that in all the male is better than the female, except that the female cat-fish is better than the male.

Now, all this goes to show that in Aristotle's time—and the same seems to hold good to-day—no general rules could be laid down wherewith the food-tester could be guided in his selections. The gastronomic 'black-list' must have been compiled from the results of blind experimentation and recording of effects obtained.

Ethnological differences need to be taken into consideration and we must recognize that 'what is one man's food is another's poison'. Some natives can eat with gusto things which are, to say the least, disconcerting to the more precariously balanced European stomach.

While I am all in favour of experimenting with a favoured delicacy of some other, and, possibly, primitive people, I still prefer in the first instance to 'try it on the . . .', no, I am fond of dogs ... to try it upon . . .', but I won't mention any names. The Nagas seem to have tried it on Hutton, who fortunately escaped with his life, and incidentally verified the Kiplingism which lays down that 'the female of the species is more dangerous than the male'; this seems to apply to a locally 'well-known edible fish' as tested by Hutton's encounter with it. His attack of 'violent nausea' resulted from direct internal contact with the delicacy, but I would urge that there are plenty of fish, regarded as very palatable by the Nagas and by the Manipuris, which induce violent nausea in the European who merely approaches within 50 yards of these dainties. Anyone who has blundered upon the fish-section of the market in Imphal will know what I mean. I ascribed the 'state of the market' to the effect of the sun's rays, no doubt because 'polarized light from the moon' did not occur to me— I am not sure that there was a moon at the time—but, anyway, Dr. Strickland's factor number 3 certainly was a contributing cause of the, to me, repulsive condition of these food-products, whose sale to the natives appeared to be brisk enough. More power to their gastric juices!

Regretting that my ignorance of the subject prevents my contributing to your publication, and wishing you all the best of luck through 1934,

 

 

 

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The Accident on Panjtarni, 1932

To the Editor,

The Himalayan Journal.

Dear Sir,

I have recently received the excellent volume v of the Himalayan Journal, which is full of interesting articles and illustrations.

May I suggest that the title of the photograph facing p. 108, 'Northern face of Panjtarni, the scene of the accident on 12 August 1932', is slightly misleading? If you will compare this with the illustration facing p. 163 of the Alpine Journal, vol. xlv (No. 246), for May 1933, you will see the difference. The latter was taken by Garry and marked up by Hadow, who was the only sahib who saw the bodies on the spot.

Gregory's photograph in the Himalayan Journal shows, I believe, a portion of the ridge some way to the west of Point 17,243, and farther to the west of Garry's photograph. I would suggest that it shows a part of the ridge near Point 15,980 (see S. of I. map 43 N/12).

My reason for bringing this to your notice is that Gregory's photograph shows a pretty grim proposition; and the ground here is more difficult than normal people would care to tackle even under good conditions. Allowing for the fact that distant photographs always make mountains appear easier than they are, the scene of the accident shown in Garry's photograph does not look such an appalling place. The route chosen by Stoehr and Burn was not unreasonable.

 

The above letter was sent to Captain Gregory, an extract from whose letter is printed below:

Dear Sir, The facts are as follows:

I heard of the accident in Dras and came over from three miles west of Matiyan by the Sukh Nala glacier, with three lightly laden coolies. I reached the shelter at Panjtarni that evening and, as we had no tents, slept there that night. I found an old chaukidar there, and he was the only person who knew anything about the accident. He was with Mrs. Burns after the news was broken to her and provided the wood for the litters to carry in the bodies. He told me all he knew and said that the bodies had been taken away about four hours before. He said that he knew the place where they were found and where they had fallen from. As there was nothing that I could do, I decided to go to Pahlgam the next day and visit the place of the accident en route. I took the old man with me. From a mound just off the track on the way between Astanmarg and Panjtarni he pointed out a patch of snow up the glacier and said that that was the place where the bodies were found and that they fell from the heights above.

If the accident happened farther up the glacier, I suppose the old man was just trying to oblige and did not really know where it took place. I have not seen the photo in the Alpine Journal, but if it was marked up by Hadow and is different from the one I sent you, there is no doubt that the A. J. illustration is correct.

I am very sorry to have sent you a ^cdud⁵ bit of information, but the old man was so positive about the place that I really thought he knew. I purposely did not give his story as I thought that that might have been a bit twisted, but gave him credit for at least knowing where it happened.

I am sending a copy of this direct to Gueterbock at Quetta.

 

 

 

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Himalayan Route-Books

To the Editor,

The Himalayan Journal.

Dear Sir,

SIR,

With reference to the notices that appear on page 166 of vol. v of the Himalayan Journal (1933), regarding volumes ii and iii of Routes in the Himalaya, the Surveyor-General has asked me to let you know that he has most reluctantly decided that it is impossible for him to accept responsibility for the publication of these volumes.

He considers that the issue of Route-Books is not now a legitimate function of the Survey of India; and even if it were, the strength of the department has been so heavily reduced during the last two years that our staff is no longer in a position to deal with the work involved. The Surveyor-General is willing to hand over the rights of this series of Route-Books to the Himalayan Club, or failing them, to any other responsible person or persons who may be in a position to do them justice.

Until therefore such time as the Himalayan Club, or other agency, can take over the responsibility for the publication of these Route- Books, the material collected by Dr. Gorrie for vol. ii will be stored by the Survey of India at Dehra Dun, but no action can be taken by this office on corrections or amendments that may be sent in. As regards volume i, it is not intended that any further correction slips should be issued or any new edition published by this department.

The Surveyor-General very much regrets the necessity for abandoning these Route-Books, with which the Survey of India has been associated for nearly eighty years.

The story of their first compilation by T. G. Montgomerie and of the later editions prepared by officers of this department has been fully told in the preface to the 1922 and 1928 editions.

The department, and the members of the Himalayan Club, owe you personally a deep debt for the vast amount of good work which you have done in editing the later editions of the Kashmir volume. The Surveyor-General also wishes to acknowledge the valuable work done by Dr. Gorrie towards the preparation of vol. ii. He still hopes that it may be possible to find some agency that will be able and willing to take over full responsibility.

In making this announcement to members of the Himalayan Club, would you very kindly let them know that information about roads and other communications in the more remote parts of the Himalaya will always be welcome at the Dehra Dun Drawing Office for mapping purposes.

 

 

 

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Note by the Editor

The origin of the Route-Books is this. At the close of the first survey of Kashmir in 1863, Lieut.-Colonel T. G. Montgomerie collected from his assistants and contemporaries in the Survey of India the accounts of their journeys, and published a small Route-Book. In 1883 a second edition of this Route-Book was published with a few additions from Major Bates' Gazetteer. Since that date it was gradually extended, partially revised, and several times reprinted. The last edition in the old form, termed the 'Third edition, revised and corrected', was issued in 1909. Certain routes had undoubtedly been brought up to date, but many had been left uncorrected. In the same year the modern survey of Kashmir was commenced.

After the War the Surveyor-General asked me to bring the Route- Book up to date. I had collected many details during five seasons in Kashmir, both of my own journeys and of those of others, and under the orders of the Surveyor-General, I compiled a new Route- Book in the present form. Montgomerie's book covered the important old routes in Jammu, Punch, Kashmir, Ladakh, Spiti, Kangra, Kulu, Lahul, and the mountains north of Simla and Mussoorie, an area roughly four times the size of Switzerland. In order to describe the old routes more fully and to include details of very many new routes, it was decided, with the Surveyor-General's approval, to divide the new edition into two volumes: Volume i was to cover the first four areas mentioned above, with the addition of the routes in the Karakoram and Kun-lun ranges. Vol. ii was to deal with the remaining area west of Nepal.

Vol. i was published by the Survey of India Press at Dehra Dun in 1922. The edition was sold out in 1928, and from the details of my own observations in Kashmir, subsequent to the publication of the first edition and from those of other travellers, I brought all the routes up to date for the publication of a second edition in 1929. Fifty-four of the hundred routes in the 1922 edition had been checked on the ground during five years, and corrected where necessary. Heights and other topographical details, as well as information regarding bungalows, supplies, grass, fuel, &c., were revised from the latest sources, and map references to official maps were brought up to date, September 1928, for every stage of every route. The whole of the compilation and editing of both editions was done by me alone, during my leisure hours. The printing was done by Government presses, corrected by me in my spare time, and the whole of the profits from the sales was credited to the Government of India. My own reward was the satisfaction derived from receiving numerous letters from travellers who have found the books useful.

A considerable amount of work collecting and arranging material for vol. ii, on the routes of Bashahr, Garhwal and Kumaun, was done, first by me, and later by Dr. Maclagan Gorrie, of the Indian Forest Service. There is no one in the Survey of India who now has the requisite knowledge of the ground. In March 1933 the Director of the Geodetic Branch took over from Dr. Gorrie the material already compiled and decided that the preparation for the press and collection of notes should remain in the hands of the Survey of India. About the same time the Surveyor-General agreed to the publication of a third volume of the routes-Routes in the Eastern Himalaya— which was already in preparation.

The latest decision is perhaps unavoidable, but is disappointing, for it comes at a time when intensive scientific work is being carried out by officers of other departments and by mountaineers of our own and other countries.

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