66 being but a straggling collection of houses, built in clusters here and there, in little or no order. The number of ruins testify to the fact that it was once very much larger; but in our wanderings through the place we saw nothing that suggested prodigious long and broad streets." The only market-place we saw was on the plain outside the king's residence. The whole aspect seemed to bespeak anything but a prosperous state of affairs. The principal part of the city is the king's residence. This consists of a number of compounds, each surrounded by a high mud wall. In each compound is a fetish shrine, composed of numbers of elephants' tusks, some very beautifully carved, together with a collection of native brass-work, the whole freely besprinkled with blood. After passing through several of these compounds you come to the king's houses, built of red clay, and with nothing particular to recommend them. In each of the compounds are a number of king's stewards, a brass anklet, and sometimes not even that, being the sum total of their wardrobe. Very few of these functionaries have access to the king's presence, the penalty for passing beyond their own particular compound being death. The king keeps up a good deal of state, only a chosen few being permitted to speak to him direct. He is a very busy personage, attending to all state matters himself. The city is not fortified in any way, the only defence against attack being the natural screen afforded by the impenetrable forest. The Benin people at one time had the reputation of being great weavers of cloth and workers in metals. They undoubtedly practise these industries now, though we saw nothing of the kind going on during our few days in the place. We saw, however, many specimens of brass ware of very clever workmanship. In a woodcut in Dapper's work the city is depicted as having hills. in the background. These hills certainly do not exist now. The same writer gives the king an army of 100,000 men, including many horsemen. To-day the king has no regular army, only a rabble called his. war-men; and a horse is not to be seen in the country. In fact, horses are not be found, according to native testimony, until one is three or four days' march on the other side of Benin city. As I said before, the manners and customs of the people have apparently changed very little in the last few hundred years, human sacrifices, criminal law, no marriage customs, fetish belief, and general mode of living being to-day as they were in the days of Dapper and Barbot. I feel I have already somewhat tried your patience, so I will conclude by asking you to overlook the many shortcomings in this my maiden effort. After the reading of the paper the thanks of the meeting were conveyed to Captain Gallwey by the President. THE CROSSING OF THE HISPAR PASS. By W. M. CONWAY.* ASKOLE, BALTISTAN, KASHMIR. TRAVELLERS in the northern regions of the kingdom of Kashmir, who paid attention to the higher mountain districts, reported traditions of the former existence of various ancient passes across the great ridges. These passes are always stated to have been freely used in days more or less remote, but to have been abandoned and become forgotten in recent years, either through insecurity of the roads from raiders, or, in most cases, owing to a reputed change in the condition of the glaciers and an increased accumulation of snow at high elevations. Anyone acquainted with the history of mountaineering will at once perceive a strong analogy between these reports and the statements made to travellers in Switzerland when the real exploration of the Alps began. It was, for instance, reported at Zermatt, in the fifties, that there was in former days a pass over what is known as the Weissthor ridge, which the natives used to cross when they went on pilgrimage to sacred places within what is now the Italian frontier. This old Weissthor pass was stated to have become impassable owing to an accumulation of snow at the top, and it was therefore abandoned. Other old passes shared the same fate, but all were sooner or later rediscovered by the modern generation of mountaineers. The passes across the Hindu Kush and Karakoram ranges will all, no doubt, sooner or later, reveal themselves to properly trained European climbers, and I am happy to be able now to describe the successful passage of two of them. Native tradition preserved the memory of at least four traversable routes across the main chain of mountains between Rakipushi (near Gilgit) in the west and the Karakoram Pass in the east. There was first the Nushik La, which led from Hispar to Arundu and so to Skardu; second, the Hispar Pass, or Rdzong (meaning "fortress "), from Hispar to Askole; third, the Mustagh Pass from Yarkand to Askole; fourth, the Saltoro Pass from Khapalu to Yarkand. Unsuccessful attempts to cross the first and second of these have been made by Englishmen at different times. Captain Younghusband rediscovered and successfully crossed one of the two Mustagh Passes in 1887, the other of which had been visited, as well as the Nushik La (though not crossed), by that admirable traveller and surveyor Colonel Godwin Austen in 1861. The approaches to the Saltoro Pass have been investi * This letter was posted at Skardu on August 9th, 1892, but was not delivered in London till the last days of December. gated by Lieutenant Molony, R.A., but the pass itself has not been visited. The party which I have the honour to lead, consisting of the Hon. C. G. Bruce (5th Goorkhas), Mr. A. D. McCormick, Mr. J. H. Roudebush, Mr. Eckenstein, and the Alpine guide M. Zurbriggen, having passed through Gilgit and up the Hunza-Nagyr valley, left Nagyr on June 27th to cross the Nushik La and the Rdzong or Hispar Pass. Two miles above Nagyr we came to the foot of the Hopar Glacier and ascended beside it for about 5 miles to a wonderful basin of cultivated fields and rich meadows, in which the five villages of Hopar are situated, enclosed on one side by the glacier and on the other by snowy mountains. Here we found a grand system of glaciers, unmarked on any map, ramifying from the south in all directions, and flowing down from a number of peaks of 20,000 to 24,000 feet in height. I remained eight days in this district for the purpose of making a thorough exploration and map of the glaciers, but as there was great dearth of provisions, I was obliged to send on Messrs Bruce and Eckenstein with two Goorkhas and coolies to cross the Nushik La at once and bring up supplies to meet us on the other side. Whilst in the Hopar district I attempted the ascent of a peak of 21,500 feet, but after mounting the glacier towards it for 17 miles we found ourselves cut off from the final easy slopes by about 100 yards of impassable ice-fall-a chaos of loose blocks of ice that insecurely covered a series of deep and broad crevasses. Zurbriggen and two Goorkhas worked for hours to force a passage through this place, but had to give up the attempt. We were therefore forced to return and content ourselves with climbing a difficult rock peak of only 17,000 feet, from which however we enjoyed a gorgeous panorama. We now crossed to the right or north bank of the Hopar Glacier, and then, passing over a ridge about 16,000 feet high, we descended into the Hispar Valley on the other side. We might have mounted the Hispar Valley directly from Nagyr, but it is an absolutely desert trough of rocks, sand, and stones. The détour by Hopar is really the quicker route. From the point where we struck the bank of the Hispar stream to Hispar was a distance of about 16 miles; and this was the most horrible piece of walking we had any of us ever experienced. The sun blazed overhead; the thermometer stood at 90° Fahr. in the shade; the bare rocks on either hand concentrated the heat upon us; and the going for most of the way was either wading in sand or striding from one pointed and broken rock to another. The flies made life burdensome, and there was nothing but the muddiest water to drink. As we approached Hispar we had to cross the foot of a steep side valley, whose stream drained some hidden snowy area high above. Just as we reached the brink of the gully we heard a sound like thunder, and saw, advancing downwards at a great rate, a huge black volume of mingled mud, water, and rocks, which filled the whole gully, and was making for the river below. The rocks that formed the vanguard of this hideous thing were many of them as large as 10-foot cubes, and they were rolled round and round by the mud as though they had been pebbles. In half-an-hour this mud-avalanche was completely passed, and we were essaying to cross the stream, when a second and larger one hove in sight above, and we had to hurry back to escape it. Three times did the mountains disgorge these black monstrosities upon us before we were able to seize a favourable moment to cross the gully that barred our advance. We spent two days at Hispar, and on one of them I ascended a hill south of the village to try and gain a view towards the great pass. After mounting about 3000 feet I turned a corner by a great stone-man, and was astonished by the view that opened before me. The whole upper stretch of the Hispar Valley was displayed, stretching for some 40 miles, without bend or fold or jutting headland, to the pass at the top, and entirely filled with one vast, even, gently-inclined glacier. The lowest 20 miles of ice were entirely covered with a mantle of moraine. An avenue of mighty peaks walled the glacier in on either hand, and a sombre roof of cloud, at a height of about 22,000 feet, lay motionless over all. The glacier began about a mile above the green fields of Hispar, and beyond that point there was not a visible trace of the presence or activity of man. It was a sight to stimulate any explorer, and I immediately descended with my Goorkha companion, and made all arrangements to start for the pass on the following morning (July 11th). What with the badness of the stony way, the unwillingness of the coolies, and the many necessary halts for surveying and collecting, our first three marches up the glacier were short. The same distance was accomplished by our lightlier burdened and hungrier predecessors, Messrs. Bruce and Eckenstein, in two days. We thus reached an Alp and camping ground, called Haigutum, on the left bank of the glacier, and something less than half-way up it towards the pass at the glacier's head. Haigutum is an important point on the route, for here a short side glacier (the Haigutum Gamu or glacier) joins the main stream from the south. At the head of the Haigutum glacier is the Nushik La; at the head of the main glacier is the Hispar Pass. It was my intention on the following day to have ascended to the top of the Nushik La, but, as clouds enveloped the glacier and snow fell with much persistence, the expedition would have been valueless. Let me, therefore, briefly describe the adventures of my companions in the passage of this pass. Messrs. Bruce and Eckenstein, with their followers, after having been stopped at Haigutum for two days by a snowstorm that lasted forty hours, started on July 4th to cross the Nushik La. Their party consisted of fifteen men and a dog; amongst the men was one Shersi of Hispar, who said he had crossed the pass in his youth. I now quote from Mr. Eckenstein's diary : "We started at 4.15 A.M. in beautifully clear weather. The way went first along the top of the old moraine (on the end of which Haigutum is situated) and then down to the Haigutum glacier, which is reached in ten minutes. This is crossed diagonally in half an hour to the foot of the slope opposite (i.e. the north-west slope of the mountain east of the pass), which is struck at a point considerably to the left of and below the pass, the part below the pass being steep and raked by avalanches. From here to the top of the pass took four hours and a half. The whole way up is on steep snow-slopes, cut up by many schrunds, and it is impossible to go without traversing some places where there is danger from falling ice. The slope is of a considerable average steepness, the bit which was steepest (about 150 feet high) being at an angle of 521. Bruce, the two Goorkhas and old Shersi went roped together in front, and I brought up the rear. The dog acted like a true mountaineer. When the slope got too steep for him to run about on, he gave up frolicking around, and followed soberly and properly in the steps. At the beginning the snow was somewhat soft, and for a short time unpleasantly so. Our progress was regular and uneventful for rather more than half-way up. The place we then got to presented two alternatives; either to go over a schrund viá a very shady snow-bridge, which would have been followed by a fair snow-slope; or to avoid the |