1936 - 1937 Mission Diary
The official diary of the Gould mission to Lhasa sent by the British government. Read more about the mission diary.
Sunday, 25th October.
The weather has changed again. Once more we have clear blue skies and a blazing sun which has melted the snow from the lower hillsides.
Our habit of spending Sunday in the hills gave us an excuse for refusing to lunch with the Nepalese officials. We all rode out five or six miles, then according to our several inclinations climbed to various heights up the mountain to the North-East of Lhasa. One reached the summit (17,600 feet). Snow cock could be heard calling up there and tracks of foxes and larger carnivorous animals were seen in the snow. Once we surprised two Musk deer who went bounding away up the hillsides. A herd of eleven Burrel (the large-horned Himalayan wild goat) was seen within a few hundred feet of the summit. Yaks, in a semi-wild condition, were grazing far above the snowline.
Author: Frederick Spencer Chapman [see handwritten annotations in Diary by Hugh Richardson in MS. Or. Richardson 2, Bodleian Libary, Department of Oriental Collections, University of Oxford]
Page Reference: Pt VIII p.3
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