100 Years Ago: April 1925

[George Thomas Wilson]

100 Years Ago: April 1925

This is the 123rd entry in my series of abridgements of 100-year-old National Geographic Magazines.

The first article in this month’s issue is entitled “The Mother of Rivers – The Great Columbia Ice Field of the Canadian Rockies” and was written by Lewis R. Freeman, author of “Surveying the Grand Canyon of the Colorado,” in the National Geographic Magazine. The internal title simply reads: “The Mother of Rivers.” The article has an internal subtitle which reads: “An Account of a Photographic Expedition to the Great Columbia Ice Field of the Canadian Rockies.” It contains sixty black-and-white photographs, twenty-seven of which are full-page in size. Sixteen of the full-page photos are actually an undocumented set of duotones, which I will discuss later. The also article contains two sketch maps. The first, on page 382, is of the Columbia Ice Field, showing the expedition’s route.

Sketch Map courtesy of Philip Riviere

The second map, on page 383, shows the western half of Canada containing a box showing the area covered by the first map.

Sketch Map courtesy of Philip Riviere

It was a strange fact that one of the first regions of the Canadian Rockies to be visited by a white explorer was also one of the last to be scientifically investigated and comprehensively photographed. That was a land of tall peaks and glacier-choked valleys around the head of the Athabaska River. There, one found the most striking Alpine scenery of the Western Hemisphere. David Thompson, a fur trader, crossed the Continental Divide during the first decade of the 19th century. He followed the Whirlpool branch of the Athabaska to its head and descended to the Big Bend of the Columbia by a stream he named the Portage River, called the Wood in 1925. The trail thus blazed later became the main transcontinental route of the Hudson Bay Company traders. Thus, a thin but steady stream of travel flowed across the Continental Divide at the head of the Athabaska during the half century in which the remainder of the Canadian Rockies was rarely visited by white men. Intent on finding the lowest passes and easiest routes of travel, the early traders and trappers were ignorant of the most extensive ice field on the continent, outside of the arctic and subarctic regions of the far north. The Canadian Pacific ran through the Rockies and Selkirks from 80 to 100 miles south of the Columbia Ice Field, while the Grand Trunk found a lower, easier route as far to the north. Those rail lines added little, if any, knowledge of the still untrodden heights of the ice-locked terra incognita between. Not until the Interprovincial Survey completed its work along the Continental Divide between Alberta and British Columbia did definite and dependable data on that unknown region become available. Among many geographical and topographical facts revealed by the survey, perhaps the most interesting was the Columbia Ice Field, covering 150 square miles.

It was revealed that drainage from that single ice field flowed into three major oceans – probably the only instance in the world where such great dispersion of water from a common source occurred. The Columbia Ice Field was likened to an octopus, with the body being the main “sea of ice,” and the tentacles comprised of the creeping glaciers. Surrounded in peaks from 10,000 to more than 12,000 feet in height, the ice field itself was comparatively smooth and level. The average elevation, excluding the glaciers, which extended down to the 6,000-foot contour, was about 8,500 feet above sea level. Its greatest elevation was a hummock of 8,884 feet, north of the center. There, occurred the remarkable three-way split of continental drainage. Where the tip inclined westerly, the water ran by the Bush to the Columbia, and thence to the Pacific. The meltage from the northerly slopes ran through either of the main branches of the Athabaska, and so to the Great Slave Lake and down the Mackenzie to the Arctic Ocean. The eastern and southern slopes drained to separate branches of the Saskatchewan, which ultimately mingled with the Atlantic through Hudson Bay. Striking scenically, unique topographically, and barely explored, the Columbia Ice Field had few rivals in its attractions, not only for alpinists, but also for all the lovers of the outdoors. This article is an account of the first attempt to make a comprehensive collection of photographs, motion and still, of that wild and wonderful region. A lifetime was all too short for the artist to picture, either with brush or camera, a land or a race. Byron Harmon’s successful expedition to photograph the Columbia Ice Fields last summer and fall [1924] was the crowning achievement of 20 years spent in picturing the Canadian Rockies. But that did not mark the end of the work.

The author first met Harmon in the summer of 1920, at a camp on the iceberg-battered shores of the Lake of the Hanging Glacier. It was there that the author first heard of the Columbia Ice Field. Harmon had never seen it himself but had been told about it by mountain climbers who had seen it. Because it was remote and difficult to reach, he was saving it for the twentieth year of his photographing in the Rockies. With a properly equipped expedition, he hoped to cover all the region along the Continental Divide where he had not worked hitherto with his camera. In the spring of 1924, Harmon wrote the author that he completed his plans for his Columbia Ice Field trip, and he asked the author to join him and help with the motion-picture filming. The author had another trip already planned, to drive a small motorboat from Chicago to New York by way of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence. He adjusted his schedule to be finished in time to meet Harmon in Banff by August 15. A pack train was already assembled at a camp on the Bow River near Lake Louise. Their planned route followed the Bow to the lake and glacier of the same name, then it paralleled the Continental Divide until they reached the Columbia Ice Field, at the head of Castleguard Valley. After a month, their work would be completed they would head to Jasper to pick up winter clothes and supplies. The return 200-mile journey to Banff would be made by the best available route through the early snows. The entire trip was expected to take 10 to 12 weeks. The author was told that traversing the icefield was safe and had been made the previous summer by the pack train of a mountain-climbing party. As they expected high water and ice on the outward trip, and heavy snows during the return, they expected one of the severest journeys ever attempted with pack train in the Canadian Rockies.

Harmon engaged the three best guides and packers of the Rockies. They were all mountain men of long experience. One, La Casse, was well acquainted with the region to be traversed. The men were informed in advance of the plans and itinerary, and warned that the picture work would cause delays, difficulties, and discomforts not encountered of hunting and camping trips. The horses had been kept off the trail all summer to conserve their strength. The only real weakness in the outfit was the lack of water-tight boxes. When they were confronted with unexpected, severe high water, they lost more supplies in two days than the recent U. S. G. S. expedition lost in its three-month voyage through the Grand Canyon. [See: “Surveying the Grand Canyon of the Colorado,” May 1924, National Geographic Magazine.] Even with those losses, they were never had serious shortages of food or photographic supplies. With luxuries cut to the bone, their only frills were a radio set, carrier pigeons, and a typewriter. The radio was the author’s idea, remembering the Grand Canyon party. The carrier pigeons were Harmon’s idea. He had been breeding homers” a Banff for a year or more but had never tried them in the mountains. With the addition of the radio, pigeons, typewriter, and extra photo supplies, their 16-horse pack train needed two or three more head. “Soapy” Smith, head packer and owner of the stock, decided to split the weight among the existing animals. They encountered close-growing timber as soon as they turned north from the railway line, and the first nine miles up the swampy flats of the Bow River were a fitting initiation for the stern work coming. One of the first packs to be knocked under a horse’s heels, by colliding with the limb of a tree, contained jam, baking powder, and insulated wire for the radio. Only the wire survived.

Between mud and devious windings among deadfalls, their progress that first day was painfully slow. Now a horse was bogged to its belly; now a pack jammed tight between two close-growing trees, while its bearer struggled on through; now, with no sign of a trail, the whole train scattered in the forest. They were six hours making nine miles. Making camp in drizzling rain, they took stock of the first day’s attrition. Although they had lost some baking powder and other goods, with their dried fruits and vegetables getting damp, their packs had increased by volume 5 to 10%. The packs would be larger for a few days. Finding it no longer possible to continue up the half-flooded flats of the Bow, the following morning the horses were dragged and shoved for 500 feet up the steep eastern wall of the valley to where a narrow trail had been blazed many years before. It was a hard scramble for the loaded animals, and far from soft work for the men. Every few feet, hair-poised boulders, left by the slide whose wake they followed, had to be rolled aside to give footing to the scrambling horses. They had too much of the same sort of mountainside work in loose rock with the pack train before the trip was over. The trail which they labored so hard to gain proved to be the almost obliterated remains of what had only been a wretched track at best. It was blocked, here and there, by fallen timber, which had to be cut away whenever it was too high for the horses to traverse. They had made it about a mile when they ran into trouble. La Casse, on foot, was in advance of the train, leading a wiry little horse called “the Rat.” Because of his surefootedness, the Rat carried the pigeon box, high atop a pack of bed rolls. When the horse found the trail had suddenly become a bottomless patch of mud, the horse tried to get out of it by rolling.

Only the cook’s quick dive and grab saved the birds from being flattened. The birds were freed with hardly more than an upsetting of their water-can, but the horse was in trouble. He wallowed; then, with all four legs sticking straight up, he surrendered to fate. Rob, the wrangler, threw a hitch over the forelegs and pulled down the trail, then Soapy lassoed the hind legs and pulled in the opposite direction. Drawing himself together, the Rat kicked free of Soapy’s hitch, turned a complete somersault, landed on his feet, and bounded along. The Rat was a tough little brute. Tall, slender, extremely dense timber screened all but occasional glimpses of a gray-green sheet of water winding across the valley floor below. That was Hector Lake. That lake was fed by a stream from the Hector Glacier, which extended from the summit of the Waputik Mountains, and drains into the Bow. Passing out of the heavy timber, they crossed the boulder-choked channel of Mosquito Creek. Then they descended again to the flats of the Bow. The going there was the best since leaving Lake Louise, due to a steeper slope with better drainage. Glacial silt was the most annoying obstacle they encountered. It made the muddiest mud and the dustiest dust they had ever seen. The dust was so fine, it filtered through the closest-woven canvas; the mud offered no resistance in sliding back downhill. They followed the winding ribbon of the Bow until mountain meadows gave way to the narrow, precipitous canyon which drained the lake above. They were forced to ascend a series of sloping benches to the north for another miserable stage in bogs and fallen timber. Climbing slowly but steadily, they came out at the end of the afternoon upon the pebble-paved beach of the upper, or main, Bow Lake. The scene which burst upon them, after the timber and mud below, was one of unearthly loveliness.

To their left was Crowsfoot Glacier, clutching the slopes of towering Bow Peak. To their right, a long, gently sloping wedge of meadow which led up to the broad notch of Bow Pass. Ahead, across the lake was a wall of ice and rock culminating in the solid mass of Bow Glacier. Two great waterfalls flanked the face of the glacier to the left and right. The slanting afternoon sunlight formed concentric circles of rainbows in the mists rising from those twin cataracts. A camp site in the northern Rockies demanded a fairly level, dry place for tents, but also good grazing for the horses withing reasonable distance. With none of those essentials available where they were, they had to push on until they were found. The mountainside to the east end of the lake proved to be honeycombed with springs. At the end of a quarter mile, they gave up and returned to the lake. There was no beach for the next mile, but the bottom was solid, and the water was not over 10 to 20 inches. The ground became soggy where the little valley ran back to the summit of Bow Pass. What had looked like a meadow turned out to be a muskeg, with narrow streams winding back and forth across it. With several horses ready to quit every time they bogged down, they were nearly an hour wallowing across the last half mile. Then they pushed through a forest of spruce to a protected campsite a few hundred yards back from the north side of the lake. Rain in the night turning to snow after dawn, was followed by a day too overcast for picture taking. They did, however, photograph some deer that day. Another night of snow flurries gave way to a day of ideal mountain photographic weather – sunshine and squalls. With their full battery of cameras, they photographed the lake and its ice-crowned sentinels, from daylight to sunset.

Laughter gave way to frowning when thunderstorms poured over the Continental Divide and quenched the golden sunshine under a pall of sudden night; and when a squall bounded up the valley and gave way to real tantrums. A flareback of the tantrum mood caught Harmon and the author in mid-lake in a little homemade boat. While they were trying to pull across to get a closeup of Crowsfoot Glacier, a squall hit. There was not much to do but keep the so-called bow toward the highest wave of the mad moment. They had no trouble reaching land, once the squall passed. The lessons in the ways of a wind with a mountain lake came in good time. It prevented them from trying the same kind of argosy on other waters that were broader and deeper, and just as cold. As the sky cleared toward the end of the afternoon, they released their first pigeons. The messages listed the radio stations they had picked up and supplies to be sent to Jasper for them. The two birds teamed up and rose in winding circles to 1,000 feet and headed east toward Banff. They never heard from those birds again, their fate a mystery. Three days’ rest with prime grazing made a great difference in the horses by the time they broke camp again. Though traveling conditions continued to be arduous, much steadier progress was made. Bow Pass, a little below the timber line, was reached and crossed by an easy grade. The descent to the valley of the Mistaya was made with only three packs knocked off. One of those included the radio, however. The outfit was mauled under the hoofs of the panicky pack horse. They abandoned hope of ever reassembling the wreck. They roped it the shattered case ad took it along as a prop. A herd of deer, easy targets, were not fired upon. They were still heavily pack and had no room for meat. Goats and sheep were within shot, but they did not want trophies.

The Mistaya was a roaring, boulder-strewn torrent where they first reached it, but after a mile, it broadened out into meandering channels emptying into Upper Waterfowl Lake. Several deep fordings and a long, wet wade through boggy marshes took them to a camping ground among the burned timber on the mountainside east of the lake head. The shore was too boggy to permit even the dipping of drinking water. They remained there a day to climb to the summit of the easterly ridge for some pictures – a panorama of Howse Peak and Pyramid, with the slivers of the Upper and Lower Waterfowl lakes, and the gleaming ribbons of Mistaya’s channels. As it was impossible to ford the Mistaya in the canyons below, they had to backtrack around the head of the lakes and go down the western side. This entailed deep fording. One of the horses, carrying the salt and sugar, was rolled head under at the little riffle below the ford, and was carried down a few hundred yards. The filly regained her footing and trotted out, then galloped on to set the pace for the pack train for the rest of the morning. The reason for her blitheness was the reduced weight of her pack from the leakage of brine from the salt sacks and syrup from the sugar. They came down to the Saskatchewan a mile above the point where it received the Mistaya. Although not more than 15 to 25 miles from its principal glacier sources, it was already a mighty river, varying in width from 500 yards to half a mile. The Athabaska, flowing north from the Columbia Ice Field, probably had an even greater volume in its upper reaches than the Saskatchewan. On the other hand, the drainage to the Columbia, by the Wood and Bush rivers, was much smaller. Working cautiously from bar to bar covering 700 yards of quick-flowing water, they reached the north bank without swimming the horses or wetting the packs.

Camp was pitched in the timber at a magnificent point of vantage just below the mouth of the North Fork. Rotting tepee poles, bent willow frames of steam bathhouses, and deep layers of musty hair scraped by tanners from hides indicated that the site was once an Indian rendezvous. The Indians of the plains never established permanent habitations far inside the Rockies. That they hunted to the rim of the ice caps of the Divide was shown by long disused trails, which they found on every pass. Their grades were invariably as favorable as the topography permitted. Not satisfied with the lighting or background when filming the pack train crossing the Saskatchewan, Harmon decided to wait for better conditions and do it again. Two warm, cloudy days were unfavorable, but started a heavy, late-summer storm. When the third day brought bright skies, the river had swollen. They replaced the packs with dummies made of wrapped pine tree limbs and started filming. The river had risen so high that Harmon and La Casse succeeded only on the second attempt in crossing with the movie outfit at the broad, shallow ford where they had easily crossed three days prior. They set up the camera on a high bench on the south bank and started filming. Soapy led the way; Baptie and the author urged on the reluctant horses from the rear. Soapy’s mare was swimming the moment she stepped off the gravel bar along the shore; likewise, the rest of the animals followed suit. Down river they raced. Packs were badly bumped and jostled with two or three bundles of Christmas trees breaking loose and flowing down stream. Soapy lost control of his mare but made it down river where it broadened and shallowed. The author and pack made the bank, but the caving earth broke away under hoof and they all fell back into the icy current.

The shifty Tip jumped at the right moment and landed on dry ground. The rest of the train floundered. The next moment the whole mob was slapped by the 10-mile current against a jutting jam of logs. It was good luck that no participants in the melee were much banged up. Finally, the current got sufficiently behind the milling mob to roll it around the barrier, where there was a straight swim to the bar below. Harmon brought his long-distance shoot to an end and rushed down for a closeup. Setting up with haste, he was just in time for the finale at the log jam. While filming the rough, steep gorge of the North Fork the following morning, they obtained one of their best wild-animal shots – a black bear was playing with her two cubs on a patch of sunlit rock. After photographing the bears, they yelled to see what would happen. The mother herded her cubs up a tree and then turned and charged the enemy. Fortunately, they were on the opposite side of the canyon than the bruin. They photographed the angry mother and her two cubs peeking from the tree. A Chinook wind, warm and soft, had played upon the fields for three days, followed by hot, brilliant sunshine on the morning they resumed their journey. The Saskatchewan was out of its banks at the forks. As long as the horses could find footing on the rocky lower slopes of the long massif of Mount Wilson, which bordered the North Fork to the east, they were able to avoid the spreading floods on the flats. When debris blocked their path, they had no choice but to push up the valley along the inundated bottoms. Although successful in avoiding a complete ford of the main river, there were endless networks of back channels to pass, many deep and steep-banked. With the surging water practically opaque, there was no telling how deep the water was.

Before their movie with the dummy pack, the horses were nervous about tackling deep fords; afterwards, they had altogether too much confidence. The first morning, Nelly, the sugar-and-salt horse, walked off a bank of glacial silt. Rolled over and whisked away in an instant, she came up with a snort and started swimming straight for Hudson Bay. She reached a gravel bar below. The filly refused to move until La Casse waded out to bring her back. All the sugar and salt salvage from that baptism was in the shape of dirty brown chunks. The slabs left after the sacks had been dried all night by the fire were reduced with an ax. Several other packs were badly soaked by plunges into deep water, due to the newborn mania of the horses to swim instead of walk. The radio was the worst casualty. It underwent complete submergence when the horse carrying it stepped into the river and was swept down before he found a place to climb out. As the radio, due to previous banging was already rated a total loss, they were less concerned over it than about the sugar and salt. They pitched camp opposite the mouth of the Alexandra late in the afternoon, having made about eight miles. Another humid night, succeeded by a clear, hot day, brought still higher water. They crossed the score of scattering channels of the North Fork without trouble, only to find the whole lower flat of the Alexandra turned into one unbroken lake. They headed the animals up into the thick-growing timber of the steep slope to the north. They had scarcely made more than a mile by early afternoon. To reach a camping ground before dark, they dropped down to the flooded flats. Those were still covered where they pushed out into them, but with much less water than before. They unpacked the jaded horse at 6 o’clock on the rough, sloping boulder fan of a glacial torrent.

The next day, the river was swifter and narrower, with broad, hard gravel bars between winding channels. It was much better going than the previous day, but the overworked and underfed horses had trouble at the constantly recurring fords. At the end of three miles, all were straggling badly, with several lying down. When another mile brought them to a good camping ground not far below the Alexandra Glacier, they were glad to stop. Following a night in better grass, the horses were stronger. A mile and a half over a densely timbered ridge brought them back to the main fork of the Alexandra, usually called Castleguard River. Flowing in a half-canyoned valley, it was steep enough that gravel and mud had been carried down to the flats, leaving a channel choked with boulders, many unstable. Torrential water tumbling over boulders made almost prohibited fording conditions. They took every precaution in the two crossing they made. They were fortunate that only wet packs resulted. Several horses were carried down 100 feet at both fords but found sloping bars upon which to clamber out. Those, with two or three crossings of the Sunwapta and Athabaska on the Arctic side of the Divide were the most dangerous fords they had. They were now at the fountainhead of one of the main sources of the Saskatchewan. To the east was Mount Saskatchewan; to the south, the peaks of the Lyell massif; to the west, towered Alexandra, Spring-Rice, and Bryce; and to the north, blocking views of Athabaska, the Twins, and Columbia, was the southern bulwarks of the great Columbia Ice Field. Most of those peaks were 11,000 feet high, two of them more than 12,000. The glaciers spewed out raging torrents of savage power, and besides the streams from melting snow and ice were rivulets from countless underground springs, many of great volume.

The trail from the river to the Castleguard Valley was blazed by the Interprovincial Boundary surveyors and had been used several times since by mountain-climbing parties. Steep, slippery, and deadfall-choked though it was, the going was infinitely preferable to the punishing grind of mud and water they had endured so far. And the valley itself – a thousand acres of mountain meadow with perpetual ice on three sides – was a near-paradise. Although at the verge of timber line, stunted but close-growing fir and spruce provided wood, tepee poles, and shelter from the wind. A streamlet flowed past their cook-tent door. Knee-deep grass up the valley promised a feast for their half-starved horses. A 20-foot cascade on the river above the camp and a 100-foot shear fall just below were the crowning touches in a picture etched in the author’s memory. Their work at the camp was to film the superb panorama from the summit of Castleguard. That peak, a little more than 10,000 feet high, was so located as to offer a unique vantage for viewing and photographing the great Columbia mer de glace, with the stupendous walls of mountains surrounding it. They wanted clear skies across the view and were willing to wait. A violent snowstorm the day after they arrived seemed to point to a long wait. Then another shift brought just the day they were looking for, or at least a morning that promised such a day. The whole 3,000 feet of climbing was over ice or snow. As a novice climber, the author had some difficult. The view from the summit of Castleguard was one of the greatest mountain panoramas of the world. Set on the southern rim of the Columbia Ice Field, with no other peak encroaching on its domain for many miles, there were no masking barriers to cut off the view in any direction. Not only were many of the finest peaks of the Canadian Rockies in view, but some of the Selkirks and Gold Mountains far beyond.

The first white man to see the Columbia Ice Field was J. Norman Collie, in 1898. It was he who named Bryce Peak, after the late British Ambassador to the U. S. That was the dominating peak in the panorama from most of the Columbia Ice Field. Mount Columbia, 12,294 feet high, was the highest summit in the region, and second only to Robson in the Canadian system. Seen from anywhere to the south, however, it appeared comparatively insignificant, probably due to the long slope up from the great ice field. Seen from the north, it was Matterhorn-like. Presenting even more contrasted views, as seen from south and north, was the Snow Dome. That remarkable eminence was 11,340 feet high, but the slope to its summit from the ice field looked gradual and smooth; yet the northeast side was an almost sheer cliff of 5,000 feet to the upper flats of the Sunwapta. It was the Snow Dome which formed the hydrographic apex of drainage of the Columbia, Athabaska, and Saskatchewan. The sky looked clear, but Harmon knew weather could change quickly. Two complete panoramas were made, one with and one without a filter on the lens. Photographs of individual peaks were also made with a telephoto lens. A round of shots with various still cameras gave them everything they came for, and under almost perfect conditions of light and air. They finished in the nick of time. Before the cameras were packed, the vanguard of the mists pushed up the slopes from the west. It came swarming over the top as the last man started descending. As a novice, the author found it more difficult to descend than climbing up. After reaching the foot of the steepest pitch. La Casse loped ahead with the dogs over apparently unbroken snow when he dropped completely out of sight. He reappeared an instant later, having caught a foot on a ledge below the brink of the crevasse.

While overhauling and shaking down the outfit in preparation for their grind across the ice field, they discovered that the banging and soaking to which it was expose had seriously affected the radio. All the tube lit up when connected to the battery. That encouraged them to string up the aerial hastily with astonishing results. Stations from as far apart as Oakland and Pittsburgh came in very strongly that afternoon and evening. A windstorm tore down a limb of the tree supporting the aerial and put a premature end to that first trial. From that time on, they protected it very carefully. Their care was well rewarded. For the next six weeks there was hardly a night in which they did not get at will several of the strongest major stations of the country, and several minor ones coming in unexpectedly. They heard a complete opera rehearsal in San Francisco from the Oakland station; most of the Wills-Firpo fight broadcast blow for blow from ringside in Hastings, Nebraska; and midnight programs of song and jazz from Pittsburgh on many occasions. The daily news summaries from Oakland and Vancouver were the greatest treats of all. Their purpose in traversing the length of Saskatchewan Glacier with pack train was twofold. That route saved from 40 to 50 miles of flooded flats in getting around to the north side of the ice field; also, it gave them a far more intimate glimpse of the great ice field itself. They were confident of success since that route had been traversed the previous year by the Thorington party. Anticipating difficulties on the ice, they broke camp and started up the alley very early on the morning of September 6. An hour and a half of steady climbing took them over the divide at about 1,000 feet above the timber line. A mile, level, with a slight descent at the end, brought them to beautiful little ice-walled lake at the side of the glacier.

The only approach to reach the ice was across the broken rock ridge above the head of the lake. It was terribly rough going, especially where the ice and rock were mixed; but they worked the train across it without serious trouble. At the edge of the ice, the horses were tied, head to tail, in groups of three or four, each group to be led by a man on foot. That gave control and prevented straying while out among the crevasses. The horses, after five days of feasting on meadow grasses, took the work seriously. The day was perfect for photography. The rims of the hanging glaciers, high up on the mountains to the left and right, scintillated in the sunlight. On all sides, the broken surface of the ice field threw shadows, like those of the waves of a choppy sea. La Casse slowly worked the train out toward the great medial moraine stretching down the middle of the glacier. Yawning cracks repeatedly turned them back; but none were long enough to block the way completely. Rough and slippery, the surface proved unexpectedly firm underfoot. Occasionally, a horse went down and wallowed, but the casualties to the pack were less than on the mud flats or in the timber. The groans of cracking ice were nerve-wracking to the novice at first, but one steadied to them over time. Doing two or three miles of winding for every one of progress, the hours slipped swiftly by. They were still a mile from where the end of the ice wall of the ice wall broke down to the flats of the Saskatchewan, when the widening crevasses ahead warned them to get the train down on the rocky mountainside to the north. The only place to accomplish that was a narrow tongue of ice and gravel between two crevasses. That “runway” was about 20 feet wide and perhaps 80 to the rock. The slope was smooth and steep, so the horses slid, one by one, headfirst, on the haunches.

That trick worked beyond their hopes. The three or four horses that tried to stand rolled and slid straight down the middle, reaching the bottom unhurt. They took their time re-lashing packs for the clamber down along the side of the glacier. A quarter mile of increasingly difficult going brought them to a place where a rockslide blocked their path. They tried to go around it on the glacier, but there was no other way. They returned to the rockslide. The problem was twofold. They worked the horses, one at a time, on what seemed to be the safest route when, suddenly, the horse carrying the radio tried to find his own way and stepped between two tilted stones. Instantly, both closed upon him in a vise of stone. The first attempt to free the horse started a small rockslide, fortunately with only minor injuries. It took a deal of lifting, hauling, and prying to dislodge the rocks from the imprisoned horse without starting another slide. They were surprised to find the horse uninjured. The radio on one side and the grub box on the other absorbed most of the crushing. Their progress across the slide was slow and punishing; horses were down repeatedly, usually with loss of pack. But foot by foot they worried along in silence. Finally. They won through to solid footing. It was rough and slanted, but there were no more rock slabs to slip between, no more balancing boulders to dislodge. They hurried to make use of the dying daylight. Over a half mile of rock, they clattered down to the packed white gravel of the flats. Packs were thrown off at the edge of the timber. Too tired to cut tent poles, they wolfed down supper and slept in blankets and sleeping bags. They did not know what time the big bull moose tracked through their camp on his way to water. The grass was poor, so they broke camp early and started on the steep climb over the shoulder of Athabaska to the north.

They reached the summit of the ridge at 8,000 feet and began descending to Nigel Creek. Harmon and the author climbed another 1,000 feet to take a panorama of the surrounding mountains. Following the train to the alley on the north, they crossed the divide of Sunwapta Pass, separating the drainage to the Arctic and to the Atlantic, and made camp four miles farther down, by the snout of the Athabaska Glacier. There, they spent four days resting the horses and climbing over and photographing the glacier. Despite a snowstorm, the radio worked, and they received programs from all parts of Canada and the U. S. They used the Pacific weather reports out of Oakland to plan their photography and trail movements. The next point on the Columbia Ice Field was the head of the Athabaska, immediately under the great peaks of Alberta – the Twins, King Edward, and Columbia. Although far closer, the only possible route for the train was 80 miles of flooded valleys. Because the canyon of the Sunwapta, which headed to the glacier, was impassable by horse, they began the long, circuitous journey by climbing over the lofty Wilcox Pass to the east. They came back to the flats of the Sunwapta below the canyon and encountered mud worse than any before. Following one miring the whole train floundered over into the river soaking everything badly. Camp had to be pitched immediately to effect salvage operations. They left the Sunwapta at the strikingly beautiful falls of the same name, crossed a low divide to the Athabaska, and began the long, tiring pull to its glacial source. There was much hard work in fallen timber, but nothing comparable to that in the mud flats. The river was crossed often in it upper reaches. At the end of six days from the head of the Sunwapta, they reached their objective and set up camp three miles below the Columbia peak and glacier.

Then followed eight days of futile waiting. The half-starved horses were munching on willow bark and leaves in place of grass already gnawed to the roots. Their own salt, sugar, and canned goods were gone, and only bacon, flour, and oatmeal remained. They were waiting for good picture taking weather, the mountain was veiled, when a four-day blizzard swept down upon the camp from the north. On the fifth day – eighth from their arrival – the sunshine, passing the still veiled mountain peak, came only to flood the snowy valley. They gave up and prepared to depart. With the horses barely able to totter under the depleted loads, the train set off down the valley at noon on September 25. The sky was overcast, but the author and Harmon remained with their saddle animals and the camera horse on the off chance of a clear-up. Pushing up the valley to a sheltered point two miles from the base of the mountain, they ate lunch and waited. At 3:30, the mist still cloaked the mountain. Then, suddenly and without warning, the clouds fell away like a parting curtain. Both light and setting were beyond anything they dared hope – Columbia, garbed in a mantle of new-fallen snow, in sunshine with just enough clouds for background and shadow. The view lasted for 40 minutes, ever changing, but ever beautiful. They shot many photos and 400 feet of movie film. Clouds rolled down from the north to snuff out the radiance of the mountain and pelted them with snowflakes as the packed up the cameras. They rode out of the timber 15 minutes later into the teeth of a baby blizzard. They were prepared for such an onslaught and did not need to seek shelter. The horses were confused until they struck the trail of their mates, then, with heads down, they plugged doggedly down the valley.

With the river at a low stage from the cold, the fords were easy. The storm ceased just before dark. On one of the three days spent in camp at the mouth of the Chaba, to give the horses a chance to graze and recover strength, the made a hurried side trip to historic Fortress Lake. That lovely body of water drained both ways from its seat on the Continental Divide, was known to the Hudson Bay voyagers and frequently trapped in later years. The timber on the British Columbia side was finer than any other they had seen in the Rockies. Leaving the mouth of the Chaba on September 29 with light pack, they reached Jasper on the afternoon of October 1. The Athabaska was followed very closely all the way. Below the mouth of the Whirlpool, they were on the old transcontinental pat of the Hudson Bay traders. The successful photographs of Mount Columbia and the head of the Athabaska completed the picture program as originally laid out. The return trip to Banff was now the main problem. With the winter’s snow already lying deep in the higher valleys and passes, no time was wasted in Jasper. The shipped the exposed film, reprovisioned, and obtained heavier winter clothes the morning after arrival, and on the road again by afternoon. Camping three days for pictures at lovely Maligne Lake, they pushed on on October 7, to find heavy snow as soon as they began to ascend to the pass about. For the next ten days, they never saw bare earth. In the lower valleys, snow was from 6 inches to 2 feet deep; on the passes and in drifted ravines, they broke their way through snow from 4 to 6 feet deep. Their hardest fights were over the divide between Poboktan and Jonas creeks, and at the pass between the Brazeau and the Cline. It was 10 below zero the night before the tackled the former.

With the horses weak from difficult foraging conditions, they were near failure at both passes, but they were fortunate enough to finally win through. Once down to the Saskatchewan at the mouth of the Cline, they had a well-traveled trail all the way south. The route led by valleys famous for fine grazing. Their most serious worries were over. With the horses picking up weight and strength all the way, they cantered into Banff on October 24, ten weeks after their departure from Lake Louise. Not one horse had be lost; not one had been permanently lamed, in whole course of what was probably the roughest continuous pack-train journey made in the Rockies in recent years. It was a notable achievement for their packers.

Embedded within the first article; counted as part of the article’s photographs; is a set of sixteen full-page Duotones not documented on the cover. Duotones, formerly known as Photogravures, are made using acid-etched metal plates to transfer a special ink to paper, the deeper the etch, the darker the transfer. The ink used in this batch of duotones (pages 409 through 424) have a slight greenish-blue tint to them. That, and the fact that they are all together are strong indications that these are, in fact, duotones.

A list of the caption titles for these duotones is as follows:

• “Fording the Athabaska River”
• “A Deep Swimming Ford at the Forks of the Saskatchewan”
• “The Expedition’s Camp Near the Head of Maligne Lake, Alberta, Canada”
• “Climbing Up Through Four Feet of Snow to Jonas Pass”
• “Blackmonks and Chaba Peak from the Banks of the Athabaska”
• “A Waterfall Fed by a Stream which Gushes from a Mountain Passed on the Climb to Castleguard Valley”
• “A Snow-Clad Height Near the Junction of the Chaba and the Athabaska Rivers”
• “The Snowy Wall Surrounding Fortress Lake”
• “Rough Going Across Shallow Crevasses in Saskatchewan Glacier”
• “Castleguard Falls”
• “The Sharp Pinnacle of Mount Columbia as Seen from the North”
• “Looking Down Bow Lake”
• “A Lake Near the Head of Saskatchewan Glacier”
• “Climbing to Whiterabbit Pass”
• “On the Slopes of Castleguard, Looking South to Mount Lyell and the Main Chain of the Canadian Rockies”
• “Flashlight of a Tepee at Night”

At the bottom of the last page of the first article in this issue (Page 446) there is a notice regarding change of address. If a member wanted the magazine to be mailed somewhere else, the Society needed a month’s notice in advance, starting on the first of the month. If a member wanted the June issue redirected, the Society needed to know by May first.

The second article listed on this month’s cover is entitled “The Land of the Yellow Lama” and was written by Joseph F. Rock, Leader of the National Geographic Society’s Yunnan Province Expedition, author of “Banishing the Devil of Disease Among the Nashi,” and “Hunting the Chaulmoogra Tree,” in the National Geographic Magazine. The article contains thirty-nine black-and-white photographs, of which twenty are full-page in size. It also contains a sketch map of Yunnan Province with an inset of Southeast Asia on page 450.

Sketch Map courtesy of Philip Riviere

When the National Geographic Society’s Expedition into Yunnan Province, China, had completed its work extending over two years, the author decided to make a dash to Muli and pay a visit to the ruler of that lonely mountain stronghold. One of the least-known spots in the world was that independent lama kingdom of Muli, in the extreme southwest of the Chinese Province of Szechwan. Almost nothing had been written about the kingdom and its people. Two years before, the author sent a letter to the lama king stating he intended to visit in two weeks. The lama king responded by courier not to come due to safety concerns; brigands were too numerous in his district. The author respected the king’s wishes and did not visit him at that time. In January 1924, a month before Chinese New Year, the author decided to make his deferred visit before taking the long journey out into the civilized world. The Society’s expedition headquarters were in the Nashi village of Nguluko, in the district of Likiang, on the banks of the great Likiang snow range. [See: “Banishing the Devil of Disease Among the Nashi,” November 1924, National Geographic Magazine.] Those mountains were pierced by the mighty Yangtze, which had cut a trench 13,000 feet deep through a wall of limestone rock. It made a great loop which added several hundred miles to its course. The whole region was a mix of peaks and gorges with very little level ground. The trip from Likiang to Muli, therefore, was one of the most trying in southwestern China. In 1921 the author had come overland from Bangkok, Siam. Nowhere were such difficult trails encountered as those down to and across the Yangtze River gorges and over the Likiang mountain ranges to Muli. It took a hardened constitution and great powers of endurance to make the trip.

The author sent his card to the Chinese magistrate of Likiang to announce his start for Youngning, capital of the Lushi tribe, on the border of Yunnan and Szechwan. He was careful not to mention Muli, else the magistrate would have blocked his way. The request was necessary for a military escort was needed. At first, the magistrate refused; it was almost Chinese New Year, the day all debts were due. People would get the money they owed anyway possible, including robbery. Finally, the magistrate sent ten Nashi soldiers as escort. Before their departure, the men were lined up and given their instructions. Six soldiers were to go with the author and four with the caravan of eleven mules and three horses. The region they were about to traverse was sparsely populated, so they had to take enough provisions for the men and the horses, there was little to forage in Likiang. No Chinese were encountered on the whole trip of 11 days to Muli. The land was inhabited by Nashi, Lolo, Lushi, and Hsifan. Each tribe spoke a distinct language, and had several names given to them by their neighbors. This was a land of Babel. The region of Likiang, once the capital of the powerful and warlike Nashi kingdom, was inhabited by tribespeople who had encountered the Chinese, and were therefore somewhat civilized. Their kinsmen in the hinterland seldom met travelers of any kind, and only on rare occasions visited Likiang. They left Nguluko on a cold winter morning. The wind howled and dry snow blew. The gale from the southwest pushed them along and almost off their horses. The trail was poor, and one had to pick a way over limestone rock as sharp as knife blade. After crossing a pine-clad spur, they follow a volcanic rift or fault which extended the length of the eastern end of the Likiang plain.

Then they descended to a basin hemmed in on the west by snow range, with glaciers and forests, and on the east by a gently sloping, wooded mountain range with meadows. No wind disturbed that haven. Two mighty gashes carved by ice appear in the snow range. They marked the headwaters of the glacier-fed Peshwe and Heshwe which, a few miles beyond, united to flow into the Yangtze. There, groups of Nashi were busy felling trees and hauling them across the plain. Ahead they saw a mountain some 15,000 feet high. To their left, the range reached northward with its turrets and chasms. The Yangtze had cut its way north only to be turned south again by a lower range. There, hidden among a maze of peaks and hemmed in by mighty walls, that majestic river later became the bearer of burdens in its lower reaches, through the heart of China. They entered a grove of spruce and hemlock, then descended over an icy trail to the foamy Peshwe. A small stone arch bridge spanned that stream. They progressed through forests of oak, fir, spruce, and hemlock. High above them the alpine meadows were crowned by rocky walls, culminating in Mount Dyinaloko. Amid that grandeur they pitched their tent for the night. The air was bitter cold, and the soldiers sat around a roaring fire. Shots were fired to let marauders know that they meant business, and soon they all slept peacefully. A glorious sunrise awoke them after a restful night. The intense cold at 12,000 feet made everyone move quickly, and they were soon on their way through a region inhabited by the primitive Lolo tribespeople. The Lolo women wore skirts decorated with flounces, reaching almost to the ground, and short jackets. Hats with broad, floppy brims covered their heads. Most of the children looked miserable, with distended stomachs and legs like matchsticks.

The quiet of that uncanny forest, with its ghostlike settlers, left the author in a melancholy mood until they reached the Nashi hamlet of Bayiwua, situated on a hillside. They stopped for the night in the lovely little temple on the hilltop overlooking the hamlet. What a panorama! The Nashi of Bayiwua differed from those of Likiang. They were more primitive. Their womenfolk were very homely and as shy as deer. They also dressed differently from their sisters of the Likiang plain. They wore a much-pleated, whitish skirt with a colored border, and a short jacket, and hoop earrings. The men wore blue cotton trousers and goatskin jackets, and cotton shirts. They manufactured nothing but led a very primitive existence. They wended their way over hill and meadow through thick forests. For hours their road led through lovely hemlocks. They met a Tibetan caravan from Tachienlu, some 20-days to the northeast, and told that the road was free of brigands. The third evening their camp site was a small meadow in a somber spruce forest near a brook. While the soldiers cooked dinner, the author inspected the caverns behind them. He found caves inhabited by Nashi shepherds and guarded by mastiffs. The large caverns sheltered the flocks. Pine-log gates prevented the sheep from straying. The fourth day they crossed the eastern slope of Laposhan, a huge mountain mass of limestone peaks and crags. Up and down, they climbed over several passes, frozen brooks, and marshy meadows. After following a lateral ridge, the had a wonderful view of the deep Yangtze gorge, with dome-shaped spurs. The river was not visible. They descended over a dry, rocky, narrow spur covered with scrub oak, rhododendron, and pine. A winding trail led deep down into a mysterious chasm.

The sun had set, but they had to continue, as no water could be found. Finally, in utter darkness, they reached a Nashi hut and a terraced cornfield on the edge of a canyon. The tent was pitched in that field. They had just settled in for the night when they were startled by the growls of leopards moving on their camp. The mules became frightened, and the growls came closer. They began shooting, but instead of fleeing, the beasts moved nearer. Big bonfires lit around the mules finally drove the cats off. After a restless night, they wound down the rocky chasm to the hamlet of Lautsolo, inhabited by poor Nashi people sadly afflicted with goiters. Their trail crossed the stream and ascended the other wall. The track was narrow and dangerous. The scenery toward the Yangtze gorge was magnificent. From the summit of a spur, they beheld a blue ribbon of water thousands of feet below. A few over a rocky trail brought them to the scattered town of Fungkou and to a public ferry over the Yangtze. Since it took time for a caravan to cross the river, they decided to camp for lunch near the hut of the opium-sodded Nashi in charge of the ferry. The river at that point was placid, at least in winter. After much shouting and pushing, mules and packs were finally set across the Yangtze. It took ten trips in the leaky boat. Soon the animals were resaddled, and they went over grassy hillsides past an imposing lama structure. They were now in the semi-independent country of the Lushi, a branch of the Nashi tribe. A mighty mountain range and a deep chasm still laid between them and the Youngning plain. They stopped for the night at a hamlet. The full moon shone so brightly that it was difficult to sleep. The climb out of the Yangtze gorge proved as difficult as the descent. Their trail was a rocky stream bed which zigzagged up, up, up.

After a wearisome day on the trail, they reached an ideal camping ground, 10,000 feet above sea level. One more steep climb over the last great range separating the Youngning plain and the Yangtze gorge would take them to the capital of the Lushi. A glorious morning, perfumed by balsam fir and spruce, found them on their way through limestone ravines with icebound brooks. They zigzagged through a gloomy wood to the summit of the range, a flat expanse of lovely forest land. A log cabin gave shelter to some Lushi who guarded the pass and fled at the first sight of bandits to warn the chiefs of the Youngning monastery. That afternoon they reached the monastery and its hospitable shelter, being guided by the chief lama’s secretary. Youngning, known to the Nashi as Yuli, was the seat of three chiefs whose ancestors were Mongols, elevated to power by Kublai Khan in the 13th century. There, they learned that the old Muli king had died of dropsy the year before, and that his younger brother had been on the throne for four months. He was said to be an amiable man and much more hospitable than his late brother. Leaving Youngying, they followed the western margin of the plain along a trail lined with roses and shrubs. A walk of a few miles brought them to Wualapi, a squalid Lushi hamlet built on a hillside. From Wualapi to the boundary of the Muli king’s domain was only a short distance. The first Hsifan village across the border was Likiatsuin, a two days’ journey from Mali. After an arduous climb, they came to an alpine meadow framed by black fir and hemlock. A cavalcade of 20 men approached, clad in red and gold. Each carried a small Buddhist shrine of silver on their left side for protection on the journey. After a brief argument, they passed the cavalcade without a sign of recognition by either party.

On they climbed over a steep and rocky trail. High cliffs were on their left. The sky turned black; it was 5 o’clock and they were yet a long way from the planned camping place. Since their caravan was not in sight, they decided to stop for the night on a tiny meadow near a cliff. Deep snow was all around them, but there was no water. A blizzard swept down, and they huddled together under a fir tree. The mules arrived half dead; there was no shelter for the night, and leopards were prowling around. Had the gone farther, it would have been colder. They were already at 14,000 feet. With numb fingers, they pitched their tents. The snow continued and the wind increased in violence. They melted snow for coffee and cooked a makeshift supper; then crawled into their blankets. A glorious morning greeted them, but the cold was intense. They were glad to leave that campsite. They reached the pass, 15,000 feet above the sea, in gorgeous sunlight. The pass was supposed to be infested with brigands, but they were not molested. They descended through a steep forest of spruce and fir. All was hushed. The trail led down a spur jutting out into a deep canyon in which flowed the Muli River. One of his soldiers took the author to an open spur and pointed north, where, upon a sloping hillside, laid Muli, bathed in sunlight. As it would not do to arrive in Muli unheralded, the author dispatched a soldier with his card to the lama king, and a message that he would enter the capital early the following day. They pitched camp on the banks of the Muli River, 8,000 feet above the sea, and there they met their first Muli villagers. The women bartered grass and barley for the horses of caravans. They wore gray woolen skirts with fringes, and leather jackets. Their hair was decorated with garlands of gilded coins. At dawn, they broke camp and climbed the western hillside.

They had gone about two miles when they met a lama riding on a horse. He dismounted, took off his turban, bowed deeply, and humble presented the king’s card, then made a speech, which the cook interpreted as greetings and an invitation to be the king’s guest. The lama led the way up and around the hillside, past prayer pyramids of carved rock. Turning a sharp curve around a spur, they were confronted with the walls of Muli and the main gate to that lama stronghold. A row of courtly priests stood waiting and bowed at the author’s approach. He was given a house with a terrace just outside Muli proper and asked when he wished to see the king. He said he had to wait for his caravan to arrive so he could change out of his travel clothes and into something more appropriate. The rulers of Muli were said to be of Manchu origin. They were given the kingdom in perpetuity for their service to the emperor in 1723. The kingdom was 9,000 square miles but only had 22,000 subjects. The kingdom was so mountainous that cultivation was only along the Litang River and its tributaries. Though Muli was the capital, it was only a lamasery of 350 houses for 700 monks. The villages occupied wooden shanties scattered over the hillsides below the town. The kingdom had 18 lamaseries – 3 large and 15 small. Next in importance to Muli lamasery was Wachin, about 18 miles north. It had 270 lamas. The third largest was Kulu, with 300 lamas, lying 25 miles southeast. The king resided one year in each, always the same rotation – Muli, Wachin, and Kulu. The Muli lamas belonged to yellow sect of the reformed Tibetan church. They wore a red clock and a distinctive yellow hat. Muli was a rich possession, as all the rivers carried gold. Rights for mining were vested to four lamas under the king, who exercised a jealous control.

The lay population was subject to military service, and the king’s levies were called out almost yearly to ward off attacks by Mantzu tribes bent on pillage. The author’s caravan arrived. He donned his best and went to meet the king. The prime minister and the king’s secretary, who spoke Chinese, accompanied him. He took with him his Siamese boy, the Tibetan cook, and two Nashi servants, all dressed in their best and carrying as a present for the king a gun and 250 rounds of ammunition. They were escorted to the palace square, surrounded by temples. The gateway to the palace was imposing. Immediately withing the gate was the king’s stable leading into a small courtyard. They ascended a broad, steep stairway in utter darkness. Two flights up and they stood before a greasy curtain. A Hsifan servant drew it aside and they passed through an antechamber, then a large, bright room, and they were in the presence of the king. On the author’s approach the king rose and beckoned him to a chair by a small table loaded with Muli delicacies. The king sat in a chair facing him. It was hard to make out the king’s features because he sat with his back to the light. The king stood 6 feet 2 inches tall. He was 36 years old, and of powerful frame. His muscles were weak, as he neither exercised nor worked. His manner was dignified and kind, his laugh gentle, his gestures graceful. The king had a younger brother, a lama destined to rule, and an older brother, a course individual. At the king’s right were a group of lamas with heads bowed and hands folded. Next to the lamas stood the author’s servants. The author spoke first saying that he had heard much of splendors of Muli and that he long wished to visit. The king replied that Muli was poor and that he was honor to have a visitor from so far away as America.

The king asked if he could ride horseback from Muli to Washington, and if the latter was near Germany. Then the king asked the question: “Have the white people stopped fighting and are they at peace?” The next question was whether a king or a president ruled great China. He had the author feel his pulse and asked how long he would live. Then he asked about field glasses. The king sent the prime minister to get some faded western photographs and have the author explain what they were. After the talk, the king urged the author to partake in the Muli delicacies – buttered tea, yak cheese, and cakes like pretzels, heavy as rocks. The author partook, not to offend His Majesty. To the author’s surprise, the king had two cameras, a French model, and an Eastman kodak. They had been a gift, but since no one there knew how to use it they examined the film and paper in daylight, ruining them. The author tried to explain how a camera worked to no avail. After, two lamas brought trays of mandarins and pretzels. The author bowed and left His Majesty, who accompanied him to the curtain and lifted it to let the author pass. The author just got back to his house when nine men and the prime minister appeared bringing gifts from the king. There were eggs, rice, beans, flour, ham, mutton, salt, yak cheese, and butter. The author gave each man a silver coin and the prime minister, three cakes od scented soaps. As the king’s porters left, a hungry mob of beggars gathered outside their gate. The meat and cheese were infested with maggots, so they gave them to the mob. All afternoon trumpets, gongs, and conch shells droned from the sword temple next to the palace, occasionally accompanied by cymbals and drums. In the evening, the soldiers played bugles and drums; a shot was fired at 8 p. m. and a bugler sounded taps.

When the author deciphered the king’s calling card, he learned that the king was by appointment the Living Buddha. The king’s knowledge of Tibetan was poor, and of China, he knew next to nothing. He used to reside in Kulu before he became king and was the Living Buddha of that monastery. Early next morning, the trumpeters and drummers were again busy. At 10 a. m. they went to Muli proper, within the walls, to take photographs. The massive palace had window frames of blue, and decorated ends of red and yellow. The prime minister guided them through Muli, even to the great sanctuary. A long flight of rocky steps led to the inner shrine, housing many gilded gods under yellow silk umbrellas. In the center was one swaddled in yellow cloth, to sacred to be gazed upon. That sanctuary was the only place they were asked to not take pictures. Umbrellas of blue, yellow, and purple hung from the ceiling, while the entire back wall was a mural of Buddhistic scenes. The adjoining house was empty. To the right was a garden with a pavilion. To its left was a seat of stone. In the pavilion was a throne were the king sat once every three months to test the lamas’ knowledge of Buddhist scripture. They descended through narrow lanes by lama houses to the main palace square. The king spied the author from his window, beckoned him upstairs, and received him kindly. Soon, the author took his first photograph. The king sat motionless for 20 minutes while the author took many poses. The king asked that his lama officials and bodyguard be photographed, which the author gladly did. When the author withdrew, he was gifted long bolts of woolen cloth. Before he left, the lamas to the author to an enormous chapel with a gigantic bronze statue of Buddha, 50 feet high.

After lunch, the author was escorted to the palace square, where the king’s officers and soldiers were assembled. While photographing that colorful military array, the king looked down from his window and sent a message that he wished that his charger be photographed. The author asked that the king come down to ride the steed, by the king was too busy and sent the Living Buddha of the monastery instead. The author was thrilled since the Living Buddha had not as yet been photographed. When the horse was fully arrayed, the Living Buddha came through the palace gate. He was a boy of 18. He wore a red robe with gold brocade. The treasurer appeared with a solid gold hat, with which he crowned the boy. That young Living Buddha was the son of a Tibetan beggar living in a hamlet far to the north. When the former Living Buddha of Muli died, he gave instructions as to where his reincarnation might be found. Having found a baby born at the specified time, they displayed the objects. When the child reached for a rosary, that was deemed proof that the true Living Buddha had been found. The next afternoon, the author took dinner with the king. A steaming pot contained a great array of meats vertically arranged in slices, below which were vegetables of every kind. Rice and several other dishes were served, besides tea as thick as soup. Dessert was a bowl of solid cream. With no utensils and not knowing the custom, the author waited for the king to make the first move. The secretary, who acted as interpreter, sat humbly and only sipped tea. The author was told that there would be a procession of lamas in front of his house that evening. The king said that the next day he would go pray among the hills but would return that evening to say farewell. The author arrived at his house at sunset when from the north gate, the procession began.

Some 40 lamas, preceded by three boys in armor passed. The first group was followed by four minor lamas with two telescopic trumpets. Other lamas followed with cymbals, while a fourth carried trays with red images made of barley flour and yak butter, pitchers, and brass vessels. The remaining lamas carried large drums, which they struck with curved sticks. By the house a mound of dry oak brush had been erected. The lamas marched thither. The last person was the abbot. He was more elaborately dressed. The brushwood pile was lit and the images, representing devils, were cast in. The ceremony over, the procession made its way back to the monastery and night fell on Muli. Their last day in Muli was a glorious one, during which the author took pictures of the town’s prayer wheels. At 5 o’clock he called on the king to thank him for his kindness and hospitality. He was given more gifts – a golden bowl, two Buddhas, and a leopard skin. The king saw the author to the stairway. At the palace gate were assembled the church dignitaries who escorted him to the big gate of Muli, lined up, and bowed him out. They left Muli before sunrise but took one last ride through the gate and past the palace and passed out through the southern gate into the Muli Valley. They were soon overtaken by the king’s secretary and a servant. He presented the author with two brass ladles. Then he rode with them to Sili, on the other side of the valley. There, he emptied a bag full of mandarins and walnuts, a parting gift from the Muli king. They proceeded through the wilderness. Higher and higher they ascended through silent forests. The author climbed a ridge and lingered to take a last look at the tiny capital, where he had been received with courtesy and hospitality.

The third and final article in this month’s issue is a companion piece to the second article. It is entitled “The National Geographic Society’s Yunnan Province Expedition” and was written by Gilbert Grosvenor, LL. D., President of the National Geographic Society (NGS). The article contains five black-and-white photographs, of which four are full-page in size. One of those full-size photos serves as the frontispiece for the article.

Since the publication of the first of Mr. Joseph F Rock’s articles based on the work of the NGS’s Expedition in Yunnan Province, China, it was possible to examine in detail the collections of plants, seeds, birds, and mammals which the leader of the expedition had brought back to the U. S. [See: “Banishing the Devil of Disease Among the Nashi,” November 1924, National Geographic Magazine.] In February 1923, the NGS took over from the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) the expedition into Yunnan Province, southwest China, led by Mr. Rock, known to readers of The Geographic as the agricultural explorer who found, in Burma, the trees that produced the chaulmoogra-oil seed, a specific for leprosy. The expedition’s discovery of a blight-resistant chestnut proved invaluable in restoring to American forests one of the most valuable trees. It was toward the collection of blight-resistant chestnuts and specimens of other economic plants that the activities of the expedition were mainly directed. Large quantities were forwarded by registered mail directly to the USDA. A fine collection of seeds of conifers, such as spruces, firs, hemlocks, pines, and junipers, was also sent. Besides those seeds of economic importance, Mr. Rock sent numerous rare and promising species of primrose, larkspur, gentian, and other flowering plants. The expedition’s rhododendron collection included 493 species, more than were known in America. They came mainly from the high mountain districts of Yunnan and exhibited a wide range in habit of growth and color of flower. Complete sets of those rhododendrons were sent as a gift of the NGS to Kew Gardens at London, to the Royal Botanical Gardens, at Edinburgh, and one each to two botanists in England who specialized in those plants.

In the U. S., the Society’s rhododendrons would soon blossom in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, in gardens of the Puget Sound region, and in herbariums along the eastern seaboard. When seed were sown by the USDA in Washington, further distribution was made. Dr. David Fairchild, in charge of the Government’s plant importation, reported that Mr. Rock’s chestnuts may be used to replace our rapidly disappearing forests of American chestnut. Those blight-resistant species were of interest to the tanning industry, which relied on chestnut bark, and which faced elimination through the ravages of blight. The USDA wrote a letter of appreciation to the NGS for the gifts which nearly a million members of the Society had made possible through their support. The expedition’s activities were not confined exclusively to gathering seeds. Mr. Rock collected some 60,000 sheets of herbarium specimens. More than 1,600 birds and scores of mammals were also collected, skinned, prepared, and carefully labeled, with notes on eye color, location, altitude, and date collected. The birds came from regions where few collections had been made previously, mainly the mountains of northwest Yunnan and southwestern Szechwan. Those collections were donated by the NGS to the U. S. National Museum. The gift was accepted by Mr. W. de C. Ravenel, in charge of the Museum. Other illustrated articles by Mr. Rock, describing his adventures while making those collections, will be published in subsequent issues of the National Geographic Magazine.

Tom Wilson