Two or three hundred yaks

‘We sighted two or three hundred yaks drinking in the river, and I wounded three. It was a glorious sight to see the whole herd dashing across ravines and through snow drifts up a lateral valley. I followed them for several miles, and though two of the wounded animals were losing quantities of blood, I failed to get again within range, for the melting snow and the slippery clayey soil were too much for my pony.’ This is from the exploration diary of US diplomat William Woodville Rockhill - who died 110 years ago today - during his second expedition into China and Mongolia. It was Rockhill who is credited with launching the so-called Open Door policy towards China in the early 20th century.

Rockhill was born in Philadelphia in 1854. His father died when he was 13 and his mother relocated the family to France to escape the Civil War. He attended the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr, where he studied Tibetan (having been inspired by Abbé Huc’s account of his 1844-1846 voyage to Lhasa). After graduation, he joined the French Foreign Legion, serving as an officer in Algiers. In 1876, he returned to the US where he married his childhood sweetheart. They had two children. Although they tried ranching in New Mexico, by 1881 they had relocated to Montreux in Switzerland where Rockwood spent three years studying Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Chinese, as well as co-authoring a biography of Buddha.

In 1884, Rockhill was appointed to the US Legation in Beijing. In 1896, his wife died; however he soon got married again, to Edith Howell Perkins. Between 1897 and 1899, Rockhill served as ambassador to Greece/Serbia/Romania. In 1899, he was appointed Director-General of the International Union of American Republics, a position he held until 1905 when he was made ambassador to China (until 1909). He is credited with authoring the Open Door Policy towards China with the aim of preserving Chinese sovereignty while ensuring equal trade opportunities for all nations. In 1910, he was appointed ambassador to Russia and from 1911 to 1913 he was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.

In addition to his diplomatic work, Rockhill was an accomplished explorer and scholar, undertaking two expeditions to Tibet and western China in the 1880s and 1890s. His meticulous observations on climate, geography, and local cultures established him as a leading expert on the region. En route to take up a position as advisor to the President of China, Yuan Shikai, contracted pleurisy. He died (in Honolulu) on 8 December 1914. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Geographicus, American Diplomacy.

A detailed daily diary Rockhill kept on the second of his expeditions was published in 1894 by the Smithsonian institution with the title - Diary of a Journey Through Mongolia and Tibet in 1891 and 1892.  The full work can be read at Googlebooks or Internet Archive.

In a short note at the start of the work, the institution’s secretary says the publication has ‘the general object of increasing and diffusing knowledge in regard to the little known countries traversed by the explorer.’ 

And in Rockhill’s introduction, he explains: ‘The form in which I now publish the results of my journey was only adopted after much hesitation, as I feared it might prove tedious to even the enthusiastic reader of books of travel - if such happily there still be. But a journal, kept from day to day, and often under great difficulties shows better, 1 think, than any other form of record the true impressions of the writer, his moods, his hopes, his anxieties, even when they concern nothing more important than his next meal, of which I am, however, assured the public likes to be informed. In such a Diary as is here given numerous glaring errors in style - if nothing worse - tedious detail and monotonous repetition cannot fail to confront the too critical reader, but let him be charitable - dirt, cold, starvation and a thousand minor discomforts which beset the explorer in Mongolia and Tibet who lives and travels like the barbarous inhabitants of those wild regions, are not conducive to sustained or successful literary work, as he may find out for himself if he will but try it.’ 

Here’s a flavour of the diary.

30 November 1891

‘I received to-day my passport from the Tsung-li Yamen. It is what we would call at home a “special passport,” authorizing me as former Secretary of the United States Legation to visit Kan-su, Ssü-ch’uan, Yün-nan, Hsin-chiang (the New Dominion), and the Ching-hai, or the Mongol and Tibetan country under the administrative control of the Hsi-ning Amban. This opens the road to Lh’asa for me as far as Dréch’u rabden and consequently Nagch’uk’a, for there are no inhabitants, only an occasional band of roaming K’amba before reaching the latter point.

I have two drafts on a Shan-hsi bank at Kuei-hua Ch’eng for 1103.31 taels, and I carry 172.56 taels in sycee. I will draw an additional 700 taels on reaching Lan-chou Fu in Kan-su. This and the goods I carry with me will have to do for the journey - a year or more.

We hear many rumors about the rebels up Jehol way. It is said here that they have crossed the Great Wall and are marching on Peking. There is no doubt that five hundred desperate men, willing to sacrifice their lives, could capture Peking by a coup de main, for there is only the Peking field force (Shen-ch’i ying) to defend it, which, as a Chinese general remarked a few years ago to the Seventh Prince, who is the chief of this body, is more expert with the opium pipe (yen chiang) than with the musket (yang chiang). This little rebellion is a specimen of what frequently occurs on the northern and southwestern frontiers of China. One day a chief of a band of highwaymen (ma-tsei) gave in his submission to the government and made himself so agreeable that he was after awhile given official preferment. His band, for the sake of economy probably, retained his name on their banners and kept to the road. This caused the Jehol officials to believe that the ex-chief, Li, I think he was named, was still connected with the profession, so he was arrested, tried, and beheaded. His son, to avenge his sire, joined the band, dubbed himself Ping Ch'ing Wang (‘‘The Prince leveler of the Ch’ing dynasty”), and announced on his banners that his platform was “First, right (li), then reason (tao), to put an end to the Catholic (t’ien chu) faith, to bring down the reigning dynasty, and to destroy the hairy foreigners.” A pretty pretentious scheme for a few hundred men. They are more or less connected with a secret society called the Tsai huei, a kind of northern Ko-lao huei, and some people here tell me they are called Hung mao-tzu (“red haired”) because they put on false beards of red hair in their secret conclaves. At all events they are very probably well armed, with Winchester rifles, I believe, supplied them by an enterprising foreign firm at Newchwang. Li Hung-chang is said to be sending troops from around Tientsin to the disturbed district, and soon the rebel band will disperse and the imperial forces will announce a glorious victory and the condign punishment of the guilty ones.’

4 December 1891

‘Got off late as we had the first casualty of the journey in our party. The black mule is dead! The kicker and most disorderly member of the party is no more. Before he had breathed his last, his carcass was sold for $2, his tail cut off to show the owner on the carter’s arrival at home, and his body carried off by the natives who were licking their chops over the anticipated feast. Our loss did not effect our rate of speed, except perhaps that it was slightly better, for we made twenty miles to Ch’i-ming-i. The day was pleasant but the road horribly stony, limestone pebbles, and such jolting as I never experienced. If ever I go over this road again I will take mule litters, they are much more convenient, and one travels just as rapidly as in a cart.’

13 February 1892

‘(15th of 1st moon) - Half of to-day was passed at Kumbum sauntering through the fair. I was surprised to see quite a large number of Bônbo lamas, recognizable by their huge mops of hair and their red gowns, and also from their being dirtier than the ordinary run of people. I heard that throughout this Amdo country they have numerous small lamaseries and that their belief is very popular among the T’u-fan.

There appears to hang a certain mystery about the famous tsandan karpo, the “white sandal wood tree” sprung from Tsong-k’apa’s hair. I now learn that the great and only original one, on the leaves of which images of the saint appear, is kept hidden away in the sanctum sanctorum of the Chin-wa ssü (“golden tiled temple”), remote from the eyes of the vulgar herd. So it would seem that I have never seen it, though I have been shown four or five other “white sandalwoods” in and around the lamasery. I learn, moreover, that the images on the leaves, bark, etc., only appear to those who have firm belief, and that the faithless can distinguish nothing extraordinary on them. This, if true, is rough on Hue, who thought he detected the devil’s hand in the miraculously produced images he perceived on the leaves of this tree.

Some of the Gopa (Lh’asa traders) have their wives here with them. They were out to-day dressed in all their finery and looked remarkably well. Strapping big women they were, with ruddy cheeks and frank open faces, in green satin gowns, aprons of variegated pulo, shirts of raw silk (buré), silver charm boxes (gawo) on their breasts, and crowns of coral beads and turquoises on the top of their long loosely hanging black locks.

In the Gold tiled temple in the northeast corner near the door is an impress in a chunk of sandstone of a human foot about eighteen inches long and two inches deep and said to be that of Tsong-k’apa. It is placed in a vertical position. On the top of the stone is a little wax; on this the people place a copper cash and then examine the footprint to ascertain their luck. If it is good, then bright spots will appear on the surface of the stone in the footmark.

In the evening I again went to Kumbum, this time to “lang t’eng,” as it is called here, anglicè, to see the lanterns and the butter bas-reliefs. The latter were very good - better perhaps than those I saw in ’89. In one of the largest ones the central portion of the design was a temple, and little figures of lamas and laymen about eight to ten inches high were moving in and out of its portals. Another new feature was musicians concealed behind curtains hanging around the bas-reliefs, who discoursed sweet (?) music on flutes, cymbals and hautboys. Four of the largest designs were in the style of the one just described, the others represented images of various gods inside of highly ornamented borders; in these the main figures were about four feet high.’

30 March 1892

‘We left by daylight, as we wanted to reach some place where we could procure fuel and cook a little food. After a few miles through deep snow we reached the main valley of the Tsahan ossu and left the snow behind. The snow line on this side of the Wahon la, as I shall call this mountain, is at least a thousand feet lower than on the northern slope. The predominant formation is still granite.

We noticed in the distance several large herds of wild yaks, hares, very large crows, a variety of bird that I took for a flicker, and a small greyish brown bird were also quite numerous. I saw quite a number of skulls of big-horns (Ovis Poli).

The general direction of the range before us is west-northwest and south-southeast, and its summits rise 2,000 to 3,000 feet above the valley, which in places is, perhaps - counting its width from the summits to the north to the crest of the southern range, two to three miles wide. Many patches of loess are visible on the mountain sides, and along the river bank there is a great deal of gravel and broken, angular pieces of stone. Reddish clay is abundant, I should have noted, on the southern slopes of the range we have just crossed.

We sighted two or three hundred yaks drinking in the river, and I wounded three. It was a glorious sight to see the whole herd dashing across ravines and through snow drifts up a lateral valley. I followed them for several miles, and though two of the wounded animals were losing quantities of blood, I failed to get again within range, for the melting snow and the slippery clayey soil were too much for my pony. I did not want to take any Ts’aidam ponies with me into Tibet, experience had proven them to be worthless for the kind of work I had before me, and so I had to give up the chase, as I could not afford to overwork the good little Konsa pony I was riding.

We camped on the bank of the river in a miserably bleak spot where the wind and the driving snow made it most uncomfortable for us all night, and where our cattle got very little grass or rest. A couple of bears came wandering about among the rocks near us, but we were all too tired to think of shooting. From what old Wang-ma-bum tells me the Tsahan ossu is the same stream which I crossed in ’89, in the Ts’aidam, when on my way to Baron kuré, and which is there called Shara gol. It is like all the rivers of this region, much shallower and of smaller volume in its lower course than at its head, much of the water being lost in the sands and swampy grounds when it leaves the hills.’

Scenery fantastic - like home

A few days ago, it was Reinhold Messner’s 90th birthday, and today it is the centenary of the birth of Messner’s hero, Hermann Buhl - both climbers marked, in particular, by their experiences on Nanba Parbat, the ninth highest mountain in the world. Some of the content of Buhl’s expedition diaries - including entries written in the days prior to his famous ascent of Nanba Parbart - has been made public thanks to a book co-authored by Messner.

Buhl was born in Innsbruck, the youngest of four children, on 21 September 1924. After the death of his mother, he spent years in an orphanage. He appears to have been a sensitive and sickly teenager, but took up climbing, and, in 1939, joined the Innsbruck chapter of the Deutscher Alpenverein (the German Alpine association). He was soon mastering the most difficult climbs, and became a member of the local mountain rescue team. World War II interrupted his studies, and he did service with the Alpine troops, seeing action in Italy before being taken prisoner by the US. After the war, he returned to Innsbruck where he trained as a mountain guide, and made many spectacular climbs in the Alps, often solo.

In 1951, Buhl married Eugenie Högerle and they would have three daughters. In late 1952, he was invited to participate in the Austro-German “Willy Merkl Memorial” Expedition to Nanga Parbat (Merkl had led a fatal expedition to the mountain in 1934). Up to this time, no one had yet reached the peak, and 31 people had died trying. The expedition was organised by Merkl’s half-brother, Karl Herrligkoffer from Munich, but the expedition leader was Peter Aschenbrenner, from Innsbruck. Buhl made mountaineering history when, on 3 July, having seen his companions turn back, he reached the summit, solo, and without oxygen. It was 40 hours before he managed to return to camp, having bivouacked during darkness, standing upright on a narrow ledge.

In 1957, Buhl became the first man to top two eight-thousander peaks, when he reached the summit of Broad Peak with an Austrian team led by Marcus Schmuck. This was accomplished in the so-called Alpine style, without the aid of supplemental oxygen, high altitude porters or even base camp support. Two weeks later, Buhl fell to his death when he and another of the team attempted to climb nearby Chogolisa Peak. Further information is available from Wikipedia and The Alpinist. 

Buhl’s book, Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage, published in English by Hodder and Stoughton in 1981, has become a classic of the genre. This can be read freely online at Internet Archive as can a more staid book - Nanga Parbat, incorporating the Official Report of the Expedition of 1953 by Herrligkoffer - which includes Buhl’s own account of his ascent.

Buhl kept expedition diaries during most of his climbs, including the famous Nanga Parbat ascent. Although these have not been published separately, they have been used, and quoted from extensively, in Hermann Buhl - Climbing without Compromise by Reinhold Messner and Horst Hofler, published by The Mountaineers in 2000. (See also the recent Diary Review article, Death on Nanga Parbat, for more on Messner who was much influenced by Buhl.)

The book, Climbing without Compromise, starts with various essays about Buhl, including homages by Messner and Hofler, but the substance of the book consists of original texts written by Buhl himself, essays and reports on his climbs, and some diaries: three early ones (1941, 1942-43 and 1944-50) and two expedition diaries from the 1953 ascent of Nanga Parbat. The book, which is lavishly illustrated with photographs, and includes an appendix of Buhl’s route climbs, can be digitally borrowed at Internet Archive.

Part of the authors’ commentary with regard to the 1953 Austro-German expedition to Nanga Parbat is as follows: ‘Although Buhl is superior by far to all the members of the expedition team, he must first fit into the group. If anyone is capable of conquering Nanga Parbat, it is he. Buhl’s diary entries, written in the tent at the high camps and down at base camp, contain the true essence of the man and give us an insight like no other document into the daily expedition routine - at times very wearing - and even into the subsequent division of the team. We discover quite a lot about the lack of organization on the part of the leadership, and about the bigotry of the few dilettantes, who first try to stop the brilliant Buhl at base camp and who then want to monopolize him after his success. The narrow-minded way in which they try to force Buhl into the yoke of their group mentality is material for psychologists. It is a good thing that Buhl is not a man who would let himself be forced into anything.’

Here are a few extracts from Buhl’s expedition diary as quoted in the Messner/Hofler book.

12 May 1953
‘Wonderful path through pine woods, completely, wildly romantic, reminds me of Karwendel. First view of Nanga. Fairy-tale meadows, really fantastically beautiful. Temporary camp in a moraine hollow at the edge of the woods.

At 12 o’clock the dispatching of the coolies begins. Wild chaos, wild shouting. A large tent and two normal tents are pitched. Approximate height 3700 meters. Scenery fantastic, just like home.’

31 May 1953
‘Base camp.
. . . Peter, who is out hunting, comes back in the afternoon, asks about Kuno and then lays into me because everyone is doing exactly as he pleases. If we don’t want to obey the orders we should go on our own . . .

As Peter says nothing to me about going up, I ask him again. As my altimeter is broken and we only have one between four, as opposed to Base Camp where there are four altimeters, I would like to swap mine, also on the wishes of the others. After asking several times and being told we could manage with one, I eventually get Albert’s. I don’t even want to mention the map - although there are five of those at Base Camp.

As I set off Peter tells me not to be such an egoist. I don’t really understand and ask why. He finally says it’s because of the altimeter. It’s all too much for me so I give it back to him and leave. Peter calls me and then comes after me. Gives me the altimeter back and tells me not to be so childish, he had put himself out for me, and after all they were not dependent on me, and could manage without me, whereupon I leave. It takes me 50 minutes to get to Camp 1, it is snowing heavily again. Walter is waiting for me up there.’

21 June 1953
‘Camp 4
High winds during the night. Entrance under a meter of windblown snow, tent no longer visible at all. Set off at 8:30 with a 100 m rope up the Rakhiot ice wall. Stretched it out with other bits of gear at the bottom, but still 30 m short of the bergschrund. Traverse behind the Rakhiot Shoulder prepared: smooth ice . . . Cut many steps, weather good but windy.

Then a diagonal traverse up brittle snow to Rakhiot Peak. Strong wind and cold. Climbed the last needle, IV, without gloves; just like being at home. First seven thousander, 7070 m. Otto stayed down below.

Over the summit, down the other side without rope. Wonderful view to Silbersattel and Nanga, particularly the South Face above the fog.

Climbed down to Moor’s Head, left snow shovel behind. Mist whipping up the ridge. Traverse back to Rakhiot Face. Send Otto back to cook something while I cut a ladder of steps down the Face. Three porters, Hermann and Kuno are at the Camp. I arrive at 7 o’clock but no food is ready yet. There are two tents in the hollow.

Tomorrow we are supposed to go to Camp 5. I’m already looking forward to it.’

1 July 1953
‘Camp 4
Set off for Camp 4 at 6 a.m., Walter, Hans and I with three porters. Otto stays at Camp 3 for another day. He does not feel very well and wants to rest up for another day and follow on with Madi the next day. Wonderful weather, no clouds as far as you can see, haze in the valley, best indication of a lasting period of good weather. Minus 20 degrees in the morning, deep snow, difficult to break trail.

Three walkie-talkie calls with Base Camp. Order to retreat; we should rest and then follow new orders for attack. Do not say what those orders are. We don’t even consider climbing down, we’ve never been in such good shape.

Aschenbrenner still at Base Camp. He’s still officially the mountaineering leader, although he handed the task over to Walter days ago. Conversations with a very agitated Ertl end with the message “kiss my arse,” and we continue. Ertl makes us aware that they will have cause to thank us one day . . . Midday at Camp 4. Totally snowed up, first have to dig everything out, very arduous. Then Hans and I each take a 100 m rope and climb up the Rakhiot Face with them, fix them on the traverse to the Moor’s Head and climb down again, while Walter busies himself with the porters, fitting crampons, etc. Back at Camp 4 again at 7 p.m. Slept well all night.’

There is a further entry quoted, for 2 July, and then Messner/Hofler say: ‘Hermann Buhl recorded the summit approach in his diary as far as the Bazhin Gap. The entries end abruptly with the words “Enormous cornice, really hard, steep rock ridge.” ’ They then include one (of several) essays written subsequently by Buhl about his ascent on 3 July.

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 21 September 2014.

Death on Nanga Parbat

Happy birthday Reinhold Messner, 80 years old today. An Italian mountaineer, dubbed by some as the greatest climber in history, he was the first to make a solo ascent of Mount Everest without additional oxygen, and he was the first to climb all 14 peaks in the world over 8,000 metres. The first of these was Nanga Parbat, in the western Himalayas, in 1970. During that expedition, his brother, Günther, died. Messner has published many books, but none, as far as I know, could be classed as diaries. Nevertheless, a diary, and the evidence therein, has been at the centre of a controversy blighting his fame since the early 2000s, when several colleagues on the Nanga Parbat climb broke a long silence to claim that, contrary to Messner’s account, he had, in fact, been responsible for his brother’s death.

Messner was born in Brixen, in the very north of Italy, on 17 September 1944, and grew up, fluent in Italian and German, in nearby Villnöß. He was part of a large family, with many brothers; and his father was a teacher. From the age of 13, he began climbing with his younger brother Günther, and by their early 20s, it is said, they were already among the best climbers in Europe. Inspired by the Austrian mountaineer, Hermann Buhl (the first man to climb Nanga Parbat), Messner embraced the so-called alpine style of climbing, with light equipment and a minimum of external help.

In 1970, Messner undertook his first major climb, an ascent of Nanga Parbat. Alhough he and Günther succeeded in ascending the unclimbed Rupal face, Günther lost his life on the descent. (Messner himself lost several toes to frostbite, which meant he could not climb on rock as well, so, thereafter, he focused on higher mountains where the climbing was mostly on ice.) At the time, he was attacked by others for having persisted on the climb even though his brother was less experienced, and these accusations led to various disputes and lawsuits. In 1971, he returned to the mountain to look for his brother.

In the next few years, Messner succeeded in climbing two further eight-thousanders, before ascending Everest in 1978 without supplemental oxygen. Two years later, he made a second Everest ascent, this time solo and without oxygen. He continued climbing the eight-thousanders through to 1986 by when he had become the first man to climb all fourteen of them without supplemental oxygen. After that, Messner eschewed climbing high mountains, preferring to undertake more unusual expeditions, such as skiing across the Antartic (1989-1990), and, more recently (2004), walking across the Gobi Desert.

Messner has written over 80 books, many translated into other languages, including English, with titles such as Free Spirit: A Climber’s Life; The Crystal Horizon: Everest - The First Solo Ascent; All Fourteen 8,000ers; My Quest for the Yeti: Confronting the Himalayas’ Deepest Mystery; and The Big Walls: From the North Face of the Eiger to the South Face of Dhaulagiri. He served as an MEP for the Italian Green Party between 1999 and 2004; he helped found the international NGO, Mountain Wilderness; and he now devotes most of his time to the Messner Mountain Museum, which is located at five different sites in Northern Italy.

There is some biographical material about Messner available in English on the internet, at Wikipedia, for example, at Badass of the Week, and at Youtube (interview in English), but there are also plenty of published books about his life, not least Reinhold Messner: My Life at the Limit.

Although Messner has written many books about his climbing life, none, as far as I can tell, contain actual diary material. However, 30 years after his successful but tragic climb on Nanga Parbat, the controversy over his role in Günther’s death resurfaced. In 2002, Messner published The Naked Mountain, a retelling of the 1970 Nanga Parbat expedition. Even before its publication, though, several of the team’s members had publicly announced they disputed many of the details in Messner’s account. Two of his fellow team members (including Max von Kienlin) published their own books, in Germany, claiming that Messner held far more responsibility for his brother’s death than he had admitted. Messner reacted furiously, and the charges and counter-charges were played out in the European press.

Good summaries of the dispute can be found in 2004 articles in The Guardian, a 2005 article in Men’s Journal, a 2006 article in Outside. and another in Vanity Fair. The details are fairly intricate, but in summary are as National Geographic explained at the time: ‘While Messner claims he led his flagging brother down the Diamir Face as a last resort, some teammates charge that he had planned a solo ascent and traverse of the mountain from early on in the expedition. He had even talked openly about it to his teammates (though not, of course, to expedition leader Herrligkoffer). Americans Willi Unsoeld and Tom Hornbein had become instant legends with their traverse of Everest in 1963. To complete a comparable traverse of Nanga Parbat - solo - would make Messner a mountaineering celebrity on a par with his hero Hermann Buhl. Messner’s critics believe he was so focused on that goal that he placed it ahead of caring for his flagging brother.’

The evidence against Messner depends largely on von Kienlin’s diary, which he reproduces at length in a book, the title of which translates from German as The Traverse: Günther Messner’s Death on Nanga Parbat). Messner, though, claims von Kienen faked the diary pages and added them at a later stage. Messner has also made much play of the locations at which gruesome remains of his brother (first a leg bone, then a boot, then a headless corpse) were found to bolster his own account. Here is a good explanation of the role von Kienlin’s diary has played in the controversy, again from a 2004 National Geographic article:

‘Messner says he’s convinced that two crucial pages of von Kienlin’s diary are fake - written in 2002 or 2003 on “old paper” and stitched into the journal as if penned in 1970. Charlie Buffet, one of Europe’s leading mountaineering journalists, asked Messner about the diary during an interview for Le Monde in late January 2004. (Buffet also assisted in reporting this article.) Messner’s response was blistering: “Yesterday, I was on television in Berlin, and I said publicly that this liar has falsified his journal. If that’s not true, he can sue me. And show his journal, so that I can prove he falsified it and he will go to prison.”

The most devastating charge in von Kienlin’s book, however, concerns the conversations he says he had with Messner himself. The diary describes an anguished talk the two friends had, soon after being reunited in Gilgit, in which the distraught Messner says: “I’ve lost Günther! I called for him. I don’t know why he couldn’t hear me. Maybe he was in bad shape. Maybe he didn’t manage [to climb down]. Maybe he even fell. My God, I didn’t want that!”

The diary depicts Messner as having been overcome with doubts and regret, wailing, “Perhaps I should have gone with him, because alone, he wasn’t capable of it. Why did he follow me? Why?" He hides his face in his hands.

Then von Kienlin’s account adds a stunning twist: Since the tortured Messner is almost incapable of talking, von Kienlin writes, “I feel obligated to guide him.” Messner doesn’t know what to say to their leader, Karl Herrligkoffer, so von Kienlin proposes a face-saving fabrication: “You must not tell K that you intended to make the traverse.”

According to von Kienlin, he himself proffered the fiction that Günther was lost in an avalanche low on the Diamir Face - and understood that he must keep an eternal silence about the ruse.

Messner’s response, as recorded in the diary: “R pulls himself together. ‘You’re right.’ He looks at me with clear eyes.” ’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 17 September 2014.

Diary of a fallen psychoanalyst

‘I am 44 today and I have a distinct feeling I have reached halfway exactly. So far in my adult years I have lived by temperament and a belligerently reactive mind. Now I feel I can start to live from true self and sensibility . . . I have heaped huge odds against myself and I have also come a long distance.’ This is from the diaries - or Work Books, as he called them - of the controversial Indian-born psychoanalyst Masud Kahn. Born a century ago today, Kahn was a charismatic and, ultimately, a controversial figure.

Kahn was born in Jhelum in the Punjab, then part of British India (now in Pakistan). His father, Fazaldad was a Shiite Muslim of peasant birth but he became rich by selling horses to the British army and for polo. He married four times, and was in his 70s when he married Kahn’s mother (then still in her teens). Khan was raised with an older brother Tahir and a younger sister Mahmooda on his father’s estate in the Montgomery District. They moved to Lyallpur when Khan was 13. He was not allowed to see much of his mother during his early years, but after his father died in 1943, he went to live with her. 

Kahn attended the University of Punjab at Faisalabad and Lahore from 1942 to 1945, obtained his BA in English literature, and an MA with a thesis on James Joyce’s Ulysses. Further studies and training led to him being qualified as an analyst in 1950, as a child analyst in 1952 under the supervision of Donald Winnicott, and a training analyst in 1959. That same year he married Svetlana Beriosova. They had no children and divorced in 1974.

Kahn’s career within the International Psychoanalytical Association is said to have been brilliant, and his publishing activities intense. He was appointed editor of the International Psychoanalytical Library and the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, and coeditor of the Nouvelle revue de psychanalyse, for which he wrote many articles. During the 1970s, Khan’s practice was challenged within the British Psycho-Analytical Association. Following complaints and considerable hesitation, his title as a training analyst was withdrawn in 1975. At the same time he began suffering from lung cancer. In his final work, When Spring Comes (1988), Khan was so revealing in his discussions of technique and counter-transference that he was accused of madness, anti-Semitism, and bisexuality. The affair caused a scandal, and Khan was thrown out of the British Psycho-Analytical Association in 1988. He died in London the following year. Further information is available at Wikipedia and Encyclopedia.com.

From August 1967 to March 1980, Kahn wrote in what he called ‘Work Books’, essentially a diary. He left behind 39 such books containing, variously, observations and reflections on his own life, the world of psychoanalysis, his evolving theoretical formulations, Western culture, and the turbulent social and political developments of the time. A selection of extracts from the first 14 books were edited by Dr Linda Hopkins and Dr Steven Kuchuck and published in 2022 by Karnac Books as Diary of a Fallen Psychoanalyst: The Work Books of Masud Khan 1967-1972. Some pages can be freely sampled at Amazon.

According to the publisher, ‘this unique, first-person account of a particularly fertile period of European and American intellectual and cultural society is an absolute must-read for those interested in psychoanalysis, history, or biography.’ Inside, ‘readers will find fascinating entries on Khan’s colleague and mentor Donald Winnicott and other well-known analysts of the period, including Anna Freud. Khan’s unique charm extended to celebrity social circles, with cultural figures such as Julie Andrews, the Redgraves, and Henri Cartier-Bresson featuring in these pages of his diary.’

15 January 1968
‘All madness [has an external cause], hence madness cannot be cured (i.e. assimilated), only exorcised. From this derives the terrible total urgency of madness to exteriorize, objectify and declare itself and be met and known. The self stays hidden behind madness.

My need to learn French derives from the necessity of having words that are not confused with the chattering anxious countenance of my mother from infancy. Only thus can I hope to speak from my true self. All the other languages, especially English, are my manic expertise to drown her voiceless chatter and muttering in my head.’

17 January 1968
‘American civilization: it produced epic products before it had achieved its character and shape - e.g. Whitman and Melville. Chaucer, Spencer and Shakespeare epitomize some 500 years of evolution of feudal-royal tradition in England, before it changes character and begins its long route to mediocrity through democracy. Similarly, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Gorki come at the end of a tradition. Same is true of Homer and Sophocles in the history of Greek literature, and Goethe, Heine and Nietzche in German, and Racine, Moliere and Corneille in French.’

30 January 1968
‘An hour’s meeting with Anna Freud. Sagacious, gracious, reticent and ceremonious person she is. Her advice: “Only do what you want, and speak only what you really mean.” ’

11 February 1968
‘Trauma: very rarely that which cumulatively achieves the psychic functions of trauma is traumatic at source.’

30 March 1968
‘Lacan has depersonalized the developmental-maturational process of human individuation into a mere language-game.’

6 June 1968
‘Robert Kennedy died. Another American murderous triumph over humanism.

The real cause of eruptive murderous violence against liberal individuals in America derives from a simple fact: here is the most powerful militaristic nation of our century that by its own overt and avowed ethos is committed against military conquest. This has never happened before in the history of peoples and nations. Powerful nations have conquered others, then exploited and conditionally nurtured them and gradually decayed and perished, and prided themselves for it. America has won wars and victories but not asserted its right to explicit possession and triumph from power. Hence its strength has never found a validity in facts mirrored by the humbled pride of others. Instead, its power has expressed itself by devious economic imperialism and pseudo-reparative intrusions of political idealism. In these, there is shame and guilt mixed with devious gain and not explicit endorsement of aggressively achieved self-esteem. 

Even the Negroes in America had been bought and not conquered - slaves by trade and deceit, and not from aggressive assertion of victory. Hence the aggressive pride of America has no idiom of actions and events to actualize it. In human history there are no models that can guide American ethos and policy. America is at present being murdered from lack of metaphors that could integrate its idealism to a frustrated strength from choice. The result is random hooliganism of murder!’

21 July 1968
‘I am 44 today and I have a distinct feeling I have reached halfway exactly. So far in my adult years I have lived by temperament and a belligerently reactive mind. Now I feel I can start to live from true self and sensibility . . . I have heaped huge odds against myself and I have also come a long distance.

Why has love been so idolized, when it is hate that has led to all true expansions, conquests, social institutions and individual progress? Why has hate become an ugly condemned word and emotion, when it alone has mobilized and initiated some of the most creative ventures of human effort and enterprise as well as achievement? A true understanding of the creative role of HATE alone would lead to a firm and solid establishment of human and humane order: social and individual.

Orientate my book Alienation in Perversions basically about the vicissitudes of hate in the aetiology and dynamics of perversions . . . What has led to stasis in analytic research on this topic is the exclusive emphasis on eroticism and vicissitudes of libidinal impulses.’

Out for Chinese chow again

‘Out for Chinese chow again tonight. Tom [Hannah], Joe [Greenwood], and I. Morale in this theater at this point is low. Efficiency is also low and V.D. [venereal disease] rates are going up.’ This is from the diaries of John Hart Caughey, an army colonel who served with General George C. Marshall’s during his posting to China as special envoy after WWII. Caughey, who died 30 years ago today, is said to provide, through hid diaries and letters, ‘a rare behind-the-scenes view of the general’s mediation efforts as well as intimate glimpses of the major Chinese figures involved.’

Caughey was born in 1912 in Bellevue, Pennsylvania. Graduating from West Point in 1935, he was appointed to several posts in the US and in Honolulu. He married Alice Elizabeth “Betty” Bowman, and they had one child. After attending the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, he was appointed to the War Department General Staff in Washington in 1942. He was awarded the Legion of Merit. In 1944 he was sent to India but was transferred to the China theatre shortly thereafter to serve on the staff of Lieutenant General A.C. Wedemeyer, commander of U.S. forces in China. Upon General Marshall’s arrival in Chungking, China in 1945, Caughey was selected by Marshall to serve on his staff. He returned to the US in 1947 and continued his military career attaining the rank of Major General. He died on 2 July 1994. A little further information is available at the George C. Marshall Foundation and Find a Grave.

Caughey is mostly remembered today for a diary he kept and the letters he wrote, all collected and published, firstly, in The Marshall Mission to China, 1945-1947: The Letters and Diary of Colonel John Hart Caughey (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), and then in The Letters and Diaries of Colonel John Hart Caughey, 1944–1945: With Wedemeyer in World War II China (Lexington Books, 2018), both edited by Roger B. Jeans. The two books can be previewed at Googlebooks (1944-1945 and 1945-1947).

According to the publisher, The Marshall Mission to China, 1945-1947 ‘breaks new ground in our understanding of a pivotal period in the history of American foreign policy, the early Cold War, and the struggle for dominance in China between the Nationalists and Communists’. 

The publisher’s blurb continues: ‘The famous Marshall Mission to China has been the focus of intense scrutiny ever since General George C. Marshall returned home in January 1947 and full-scale civil war consumed China. Yet until recently, there was little new to add to the story of the failure to avert war between the Chinese Nationalists, under Chiang Kai-shek, and the Chinese Communists, led by Mao Zedong. Drawing on a newly discovered insider’s account, Roger B. Jeans makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of Marshall’s failed mediation effort and the roles played by key Chinese figures. Working from the letters and diary of U.S. Army Colonel John Hart Caughey, Jeans offers a fresh interpretation of the mission. From beginning to end, Caughey served as Marshall’s executive officer, in effect his right-hand man, assisting the general in his contacts with the Chinese and drafting key documents for him. Through his writings, Caughey provides a rare behind-the-scenes view of the general’s mediation efforts as well as intimate glimpses of the major Chinese figures involved, including Chiang Kai-shek, Madame Chiang, and Zhou Enlai. In addition to daily contact with Marshall, Caughey often rubbed shoulders with these major Nationalist and Communist figures. As a meticulous eyewitness to history in the making, Caughey offers crucial insight into a key moment in post-World War II history.’

Of the second book to be published - The Letters and Diaries of Colonel John Hart Caughey, 1944–1945 -the publisher says: ‘[Caughey] chronicled the US military’s role in wartime China, especially his life as an American planner (when he was subject to military censorship). Previous accounts of the China Theater have largely neglected the role of the War Department planners stationed in Chungking, many of whom were Caughey’s colleagues and friends. He also penned colorful descriptions of life in wartime China, which vividly remind the reader how far China has come in a mere seventy-odd years.’

Here’s a page of typical near-daily diary entries from The Marshall Mission to China, 1945-1947.

10 December 1945
‘[Mel] Huston left last week. Hated to see him go but his hind end needs looking after.’

11 December 1945
‘US Frs [Forces] China Theater rapidly deactivating. But I seem to be stuck. TPS [Theater Planning Section] of which I am chief seems to be taking on more and bigger jobs as others close down.’

13 December 1945
‘Marshall has publically accepted blame for Pearl Harbor. Such a statement would ruin a lesser man.’

16 December 1945
‘New directive received.’

17 December 1945
‘Presidents new Policy on China announced. New attitude may not be better but it sure is different. Where do we go from here?’

18 December 1945
‘Pres[ident’s] Policy at least got the Gmo [Chiang Kai-shek] and Chou En Lai [Zhou En-lai] (N 2 Commie) together again. Maybe something can be worked out.’

19 December 1945
‘Marshall due in tomorrow. Hdrs. is flying about trying to get everything all set.’

20 December 1945
‘Marshall arrived. He’s become China’s “White Hope.” Individually the two factions [the Nationalists and Communists] don’t think so though because somebody is going to have to give or else U.S. will quit.’

21 December 1945
‘Gave presentation for General Marshall today. Each staff section chief did the briefing. He seemed impressed and extremely interested.’

22 December 1945
‘Out for Chinese chow again tonight. Tom [Hannah], Joe [Greenwood], and I. Morale in this theater at this point is low. Efficiency is also low and V.D. [venereal disease] rates are going up.’

The quest for Sandy Irvine

‘It has been very trying for everyone with a freezing air temperature and a temperature of 120 in the sun, and terribly strong reflection off the snow. My face is perfect agony. Have prepared two oxygen apparatus for our start tomorrow morning.’ This is part of the very last diary entry written by the young mountain climber Andrew (Sandy) Irvine before he was lost, along with his expedition leader George Mallory, near the summit of Everest. Today marks the 100th anniversary of the very day he and Mallory might, in fact, have reached the summit of Everest nearly a quarter of a century before Hilary and Norgay - though this possibility remains a matter of much discussion, as well as of conspiracy theories.

Irvine was born on 8 April 1902 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, one of six children to a historian and his wife. Educated at Birkenhead and Shrewsbury Schools, he demonstrated a natural engineering acumen, and excelled at sports particularly rowing. On entering Merton College, Oxford, he joined the Oxford University Mountaineering Club, and was also a member of the winning Oxford crew in the 1923 Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. That same year, he took part in the Merton College Arctic Expedition to Spitsbergen led by Noel Odell. On Odell’s recommendation, Irvine, still an undergraduate, was invited to join the third British Mount Everest expedition.

Irvine and three other members of the expedition, including George Mallory, set sail for the Himalayas from Liverpool on board SS California on 29 February 1924. According to Wikipedia, Irvine ‘made major and crucial innovations to the expedition’s professionally designed oxygen sets, radically improving their functionality, lightness, and strength; he also maintained the expedition’s cameras, camp beds, primus stoves, and many other devices; and he was universally popular, and respected by his older colleagues for his ingenuity, companionability, and unstinting hard work.’

The expedition made two unsuccessful attempts on the summit in early June, and time remained for one more. This last chance fell to the expedition’s most experienced climber, George Mallory, and he chose the inexperienced Irvine (over Odell) to accompany him. They began their ascent on 6 June, and by the end of the next day, they had established a final two-man camp at 8,168m. The pair were last seen alive a few hundred metres from the summit, and it is unknown whether one or both of them reached the summit before they died. An ice axe was found in 1933, and Mallory’s body was found in 1999, but Irvine’s body has never been found. The date of Irvine’s death is given as either 8 or 9 June 1924. Further information is available from Wikipedia, 

Since then, the mystery about whether the climbers reached the summit before perishing has inspired hypotheses and conspiracy theories. This is partly because if they had reached the summit they would have done so nearly a quarter of a century earlier than the duo credited with being the very first to climb Everest, i.e. Hilary and Norgay (see On Top of Mount Everest), and more than 40 years earlier than the Chinese climbers who first conquered Everest via the same North Face route taken by Mallory and Irvine - see Explorersweb and Daily Mail. See also Mallory, Irvine and Everest: The Last Step But One by Robert H. Edwards, recently published by Pen & Sword History. (A note by Edwards on his research for the book can be read at Goodreads.)

A first edition of Irvine’s diary was compiled in 1979 by the English climber Herbert Carr and published as The Irvine Diaries: Andrew Irvine and the Enigma of Everest 1924 by Gastons-West Col Publications. Carr based the book on Irvine’s expedition journal, as the sub-title makes clear, but he also quotes from more youthful diary material. Some extracts - including the very last one - are available to read online at The Andrew “Sandy” Irvine Blog. Moreover, Julie Summers often quotes from, and refers to, Irvine’s journal in Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine (which is available to borrow digitally at Internet Archive). Here are Irvine's last diary entries.

31 May 1924
‘Started for the North Col about 9.00 a.m. Snow on glacier was balling badly, even with crampons. We storied our way slowly up the Col. I had a very heavy load and so was thankful to go slowly. One coolie lost an Unnamed stove and meter, which made us a bit short. Much time had been spent fixing the rope ladder in the chimney.’

1 June 1924
‘Up at 4.30 a.m. to cook breakfast for the climbers. Very cold and disagreeable job. Thank God my profession is not to be a cook!’

2 June 1924
‘Up at 5.00 a.m. to cook breakfast for Norton and Somervell, and got them off shortly after 6.00 a.m. with two porters. About 9.00 - 10.00 a.m. Georgia Passang returned very done in, and as far as I could gather from him, the rest were pushing on, but by 11.00 a.m. I could see quite plainly the first party returning. I set two primuses going for their tiffin and took up a rope and met them at the Col. The porters had been unable to stand the wind and even Camp V was short of what they wanted in altitude. George was very tired after a very windy night, and Geoff had strained his heart. Hazard and Odell escorted porters up from Camp III and George decided that I should go down in Hazard’s place and prepare apparatus for and oxygen attempt. He, Geoff and I got to Camp III with all spare porters at about 4.30 p.m. My face was badly cut by the sun and wind on the Col, and my lips are cracked to bit, which makes eating very unpleasant.’

3 June 1924
‘A most unpleasant night when everything on earth seemed to rub against my face, and each time it was touched bits of burnt and dry skin came off, which made me nearly scream with pain. Spent the afternoon preparing oxygen apparatus ready for an oxygen attempt with one Camp only above the North Col.’

4 June 1924
‘Mallory and I prepared for our oxygen attempt, but shortly after breakfast a porter came down to say that Norton and Somervell had established Camp VI at 27,000 feet, and stayed the night there. Great was the excitement in the camp. Noel had his telephoto camera out and everyone watched unceasingly all day, but not a sign. After an early tiffin George and I put the worst aspect on things, and we decided to go up to the North Col and be ready to fetch ice men down, or make an oxygen attempt ourselves a day later. We took exactly three hours going up, which included about a quarter of an hour at the dump selecting and testing oxygen cylinders. I breathed oxygen all the last half of the way and found that it slowed my breathing down at least three times. George and I arrived at the Camp feeling very surprisingly fresh. Odell, who had been deserted by Hazard in the morning, had failed to pick anything up with the glasses. George believes he has seen their downward tracks some 700ft. below the summit. I hope they’ve got to the top, but by God, I’d like a whack at it myself. Have brought Noel’s pocket cinema up, but not used it yet. Norton and Somervell spotted at about 8 p.m. on the snow. Odell and George went to escort them down while I prepared a hot meal and plenty of drink. They were both very exhausted indeed. They had reached 28,000 feet. They all got back to Camp IV at 9.30.’

5 June 1924
‘My sore face gave a lot of trouble last night. Somervell still very exhausted, but started for Camp III before tiffin. Norton is badly snow blind and can’t be moved down just yet. We covered his tent with sleeping bags to keep it dark - he’s had a pretty miserable day of it - it has been very trying for everyone with a freezing air temperature and a temperature of 120 in the sun, and terribly strong reflection off the snow. My face is perfect agony. Have prepared two oxygen apparatus for our start tomorrow morning.’

A city in handcuffs

‘There was a drama involving two alleged Chinese dissidents who can’t be kept in Hong Kong but have been denied entry to the UK. This had all the makings of a nasty political incident. I hoped the Canadians might be prepared to take the two women. What was absolutely clear was that we can’t send them back to mainland China.’ This is from the diaries that Chris Patten - turning 80 today - kept for five years while Governor of Hong Kong. In his foreword to the diaries, published only recently, he talks of ‘the brutal and authoritarian communist regime which now holds a city I love in its handcuffs’.

Patten was born on 12 May 1944, in Cleveleys, Lancashire, the only son of Charles Patten, a jazz drummer, and Joan, a teacher. He was raised in London, where he attended primary school before securing a scholarship to St. Benedict’s School, Ealing, a Catholic independent school. He went on to study history at Balliol College, Oxford. He joined the Conservative Research Department in 1966, and was seconded to the Cabinet Office in 1970 where he worked as personal assistant and political secretary to Lord Carrington and Lord Whitelaw during their terms as Chairmen of the Conservative Party. In 1974 he was appointed the youngest ever Director of the Conservative Research Department. That same year, he married Lavender Thornton, a barrister, with whom he would have three daughters.

Patten was elected as Member of Parliament for Bath in 1979, a seat he held until 1992. He rose quickly, holding many and various different offices: Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office in 1983; Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science in 1985; Minister for Overseas Development at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in 1986; and Secretary of State for the Environment in 1989. Having been appointed to the Privy Council in 1989, he became a Companion of Honour in 1998. Also, from 1990, under Prime Minister John Major, he was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Chairman of the Conservative Party. He guided the Party to an unexpected electoral victory in 1992, but lost his own seat.

Patten then accepted an appointment as Governor of Hong Kong, from 1992 to 1997, overseeing the return of Hong Kong to China. Thereafter, he was Chairman of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland set up under the Good Friday Peace Agreement, which reported in 1999. From 1999 to 2004, he served as European Commissioner for External Relations, and in January 2005 he entered the House of Lords. In 2003, he was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford, but is due to retire this year. Other posts include: Co-Chair of the UK-India Round Table in 2006; and Chairman of the BBC Trust from 2011 to 2014. He was appointed Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter in April 2023 by King Charles III. Further information is readily available at Wikipedia, Oxford University, or the BBC. 

Patten has published a few books, at irregular intervals, mostly on world affairs, but also of an autobiographical nature including, most recently, The Hong Kong Diaries (Allen Lane, 2022). In his foreword (see below), he explains how and why he decided to publish the diaries; he also mentions his wife’s ‘meticulously kept diaries’ and their plans to leave their diaries to the Bodleian Library to be made publicly available ‘warts and all’.

In the last paragraph of the foreword, Patten says: ‘I have not used any material from government archives, neither those kept at Kew nor those which reside separately with other colonial papers. Nor have I used any private correspondence. I have from time to time borrowed the description of events from the meticulously kept diary of my wife, Lavender, and occasionally have cross-checked dates and events with her accounts. We both intend to give our original diaries - in my own case principally the transcription of tape recordings and the large exercise books in which I wrote down every evening what was happening during the last part of my governorship - to the Bodleian Library in Oxford and ask that they should be made available, warts and all, to scholars who wish to read them. In some places the text has been reformulated for publication and to cope with the reduction of the total day-by-day diary by several hundred thousand words. I have not excised passages where occasionally my frustration may, with hindsight, have got the better of me, since they are a true reflection of the tensions that from time to time surfaced as we navigated an unprecedented series of events. But looking back now there is nothing material that I would have done differently. My only self-censorship has been to avoid the use of names from time to time, particularly those of people who are still in Hong Kong and might suffer because of the brutal and authoritarian communist regime which now holds a city I love in its handcuffs.’

Here are several extracts from The Hong Kong Diaries.

14 April 1992
‘News of the possibility of my going to Hong Kong has leaked, I suspect because one or two of my friends have been so noisily advocating my remaining in British politics. The story has rapidly turned into the suggestion that a short break that Lavender and I are planning to take with Alice in France over the Easter weekend is intended to be my time to reflect on whether or not to head east. Truth to tell, Lavender and I have pretty well made up our minds already.’

10 September 1992
‘There was a drama involving two alleged Chinese dissidents who can’t be kept in Hong Kong but have been denied entry to the UK. This had all the makings of a nasty political incident. I hoped the Canadians might be prepared to take the two women. What was absolutely clear was that we can’t send them back to mainland China. But we seemed to be making progress on the issue of the new terminal, thanks to some very neat footwork by the senior civil servant involved, Anson Chan. She found an ingenious formula which met some of my requirements about openness and competition while guarding against any lack of competitiveness in the running of the terminal and port as a whole. She has many of the things that I like about civil servants - she’s decisive, smart, talks straight to me and is prepared to take on tough assignments. My team think she is terrific, together with Michael Sze, that she’s the best of the local civil servants - and since most of them are very good that is high praise.’

17 September 1992
‘Day after day we go round and round the wretched airport with the Chinese side buggering us about in increasingly imaginative ways. We put forward some new proposals reducing the amount of borrowing that is required and increasing the equity injection by using the money made from the sale of land along the new rail route to invest in the whole project. It’s a perfectly reasonable approach - it builds on China’s own proposals; it cuts the overall cost of the airport; it means that we will not have to channel resources from other public-spending programmes. But it didn’t get a very good public reception, partly because some of the British press suggested that it is a kowtow and the pro-Beijing papers attacked us because it isn’t exactly what the Chinese side have pressed for, whatever they may have been saying this morning. So much for the understanding which Li Peng signed with John Major.’

19 February 1997
‘Rumours again that Deng is dead. Bob has phoned our embassy in Beijing, who report that there are no signs of an imminent Deng-Mao celestial meeting - no extra police on the streets, no solemn music on the radio. One of our senior officials, whom I invested with the CBE a few months ago, has suggested that, since a message for the disabled in our lifts is not yet available in Cantonese, we should stop the English message. We also had a good district visit to Sham Shui Po in Kowloon. It’s an old working-class area with a host of economic, housing and environmental problems. I’d been here last on an unpublicized visit to look at some black spots and I returned to the same block of really bad private housing that I looked at before. It’s been tidied up a bit and the tenants are disarmingly grateful. But the conditions are still pretty awful. I climb up onto the roof and look across rooftops of similar buildings, covered in illegal shacks as though a raggle-taggle army had camped out on Kowloon’s skyline. This is a long way from the marbled halls in mid-levels. Hardly surprisingly this district is a hotbed of political activism. The social problems find their safety valve in politics, petitioning, demonstrating, arguing - all pretty peacefully. When I see the problems in a place like this, it makes me realize how much Hong Kong needs another blast of social progress. I’d like to be building on what I started in 1992, which in some areas has only touched the surface of peoples’ lives. I ran into a good-natured demo on the way into a shopping mall and I disarmed them by handing out the traditional New Year lai see packets. There is a mad scramble to get one of the little red envelopes, banners dropping as hands reach out for the packets. Edward heard a photographer on his mobile phone talking to his newsdesk. ‘Did you get good photos of the demo?’ he was asked. ‘No - he started handing out bloody presents.’ 

23 June 1997
‘It’s a ‘lasts of everything’ week. And planning and organization for the farewell, the departure and the launching of the SAR government are becoming ever more demanding and even more frenetic. Chinese secretiveness and bureaucratic incompetence risk throwing everything into chaos. The Chinese are still producing lists of guests whom they want invited to events. Their plans for the arrival of senior leaders change by the day, but they seem to have given up on the idea of the vast yacht. What a mess. Our team of officials is working literally around the clock and are all dog-tired. The weather is awful, leaden skies, rolls of thunder and swampy heat. At Exco, the main issue was about de-registering a company called Rex, which is involved in weapons proliferation, especially chemical weapons. It’s plainly a front for the main Chinese arms dealer and manufacture, Noninco. The papers have all come through for this decision to be taken this week, and I’m also being pressed to close down an Iranian bank which has been funding the proliferation exercise along with the Bank of China. I’m prepared to act against the company even though it is so late in the day. But to hit the bank, which has local creditors, risks provoking an nth-hour bank run that would look to the Chinese like a final British ‘petty trick’. We can fire a shot across their bows, setting the government on course to close them down later if they don’t give satisfactory answers to our questions. It will be an interesting test of the new SAR government’s resolve to protect Hong Kong’s reputation as a reliable partner in the strategic trade field.’

My dear Lord Harvey’s body

‘Put my dear Lord Harvey’s body on board the Centurion. The great Cabin was hang’d and the floor cover’d with mourning; round about were fasten’d scutchions; the Steerage was hang’d likewise. My Lord’s body was taken of the Dogger into the Centurion’s long boat, there cover’d with a rich velvet Pal, bordered with white Sarsenet and satin.’ Some 350 years ago this very day, Dr John Covel - who had been appointed chaplain to the ambassador at Constantinople - was overseeing the ambassador’s corpse being made ready for its return to England. Covel’s diaries - which provide a rare first hand and detailed report of Ottoman politics, culture and society - lay buried in the British Museum for many years before being published by the Hakluyt Society more than two centuries after they were written.

Covel was born at Horningsheath in Suffolk in 1638, and educated at Bury St. Edmunds and Christ’s College, Cambridge. He trained to be a physician, but was elected to a fellowship at his college, and took up Holy Orders. In 1699, he was appointed chaplain to the ambassador at Constantinople (Sir Daniel Harvey) by the Levant Company. Charles II aided the appointment by providing a dispensation for him to go to Contantinople while holding his fellowship at the same time. For two years, after Harvey’s death, he was in sole charge of the English embassy there, but thereafter - and for nine years - he travelled widely.

After his return to England, Covel spent the winter of 1680/1681 in Suffolk suffering with fever, before being made Chaplain to the Princess of Orange in The Hague (1681-1685). He was then elected the 15th Master of Christ’s in 1688, a position he held until his death in 1722. In his later years, he continued to correspond with a wide range of English scholars, including Isaac Newton, John Locke, and John Mill, and is said to have helped develop the study of fossils. Further information is available at Wikipedia and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (modern version with log-in required or out of copyright edition). 

Covel kept a diary during his travels in the 1670s but this was not edited or published until 1893 in The Hakluyt Society’s Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant (edited by J. Theodore Bent). The tome - freely available at Internet Archive - contains two sections: The Diary of Master Thomas Dallam 1599-1600; and Extracts from the Diaries of Dr. John Covel (1670-1679). Here are Bent’s (entertaining and informative) notes on Covel and his diary.

‘The writer of the second MS. we have before us is mentioned by Evelyn in his Diary (ii, 338) as “Covel, the great Oriental traveller”. Evidently he intended either to publish a work himself, or that his diary should be published shortly after his death, for he divided part of his MS. into chapters, put in illustrations, and collected together everything connected with himself, every scrap of letter and paper that would be of use, even down to his testamur when he took his B.A. in 1657; but this mass of MS. has remained hidden in the British Museum, and has never yet seen the light of day. It is easy to see why any publisher would recoil from bringing out so prolix a work, for the Doctor is wearisome in the extreme. Before we leave Deal, in his first chapter, at the outset of his travels, we are treated to at least thirty closely-written pages on the wonders of the deep, which he picked up there; soon follows a long dissertation on sea-sickness, and its supposed causes; and whenever he came near any place of archæological interest, such as Carthage, Ephesus, Constantinople, etc., he gives us enough information to fill a good-sized volume on each spot. Consequently, it has been found necessary to eliminate much in Dr. Covel’s exceedingly bulky diaries.

His narrative is, however, extremely interesting on many points: during the six-and-a-half years he resided at Constantinople, from 1670 to 1677, he noticed everything; his sketches of life, costumes, and manners are minute and life-like. Sir George Wheeler says, in his volume of travels: “Dr. Covel, then chaplain to his Majesty’s ambassador there, amongst many curiosities shewed us some Turkish songs set to musick; which he told us were, both for sense and music, very good: but past our understanding.” Being, as he was, intimately connected with the embassy, he had ample opportunity for studying the politics of the time. Dr. Covel was present at the granting of the capitulations of 1676, which gained for the Levant Company privileges which established it, for the ensuing century and a half of its existence, on an unapproachable foundation.

[. . .] During his residence at Constantinople he witnessed many important sights, notably the great fêtes at Adrianople in honour of the circumcision of Prince Mustapha, and the marriage of the Sultan’s daughter, which were the most noted fêtes of the century in Turkey, and also the granting of the capitulations during the time of the plague.’

And here are several dated extracts (though most extracts in the work are, in fact, undated)

10 April 1674
‘At 8 at night we weigh’d (being upon the Dogger), and next day 3 1/2 in afternoon we came to Anchor at the Asia side over against the little conduit within shot of that most innermost castle. We went on shoar and dispatcht our business with the Aga there. My Ld. had sent each of them a vest of cloth; we had our audience without the castle, in a house on purpose, by the draw bridge. Our Jew Druggerman, 10 or 12 dayes before, had shew’d some strangers up and down without the Castle, and at last, venturing to peep in, was catch’t and soundly drubb’d. Notwithstanding this, I went round about the outside and past it.

Several guns on the ground play up and down the Hellespont; on that side are 14 port holes, where lye great guns chamber’d to shoot stone shot, very big, near 2 foot diameter, all fixt and immovable, and therefore to be charged only without. They will fling a shot crosse the Hellespont with ease. In the night they have lights on either side, and watch if any ship steals down; just as they eclips those lights, they can see them and so fire upon them. Bellonius makes it but 1/4 mile over; it is near a mile at least. I was not on the other side Castle, but I counted just 23 gun holes and thre sally ports between them ; it seem’d a farre bigger castle than Abidos above said.’

12 April 1674
‘By reason of our present, with leave, we weigh’d at 10 o’clock, and within lesse then an houre we passt the other outward castles, but at too great a distance to say any more then that they are fairer and greater, and built according to modern formes. At night we rcacht the N. end of Mitilene about 8 o’clock.’

26 April 1674
‘Put my dear Lord Harvey’s body on board the Centurion. The great Cabin was hang’d and the floor cover’d with mourning; round about were fasten’d scutchions; the Steerage was hang’d likewise. My Lord’s body was taken of the Dogger into the Centurion’s long boat, there cover’d with a rich velvet Pal, bordered with white Sarsenet and satin. At the Head of the Corps was fixt a Hatchment, my Lord’s armes, in a square frame standing on one of the corners. At the head of the boat was his six trumpeters and his drummer. The Advise’s long boat tow’d it forward, and in it was his 6 Trumpeters likewise, and his drum, all sounding a dead march, went slowly forward in a round; the Consul’s (Mr. Ricaut’s) boat followed; after that many of the festoons in other boates. At its reception into the Centurion there was 3 voleyes of small shot and 30 Guns fired. The Advice fired 28; all the General ships and others in port fired, some 12, some 14, some 16 guns. Worthy Capt. Hill, who brought him out, fired every minute all the while we were going on the Dogger. The Body was put down into the hold, and a Cenotaph stood in the great cabbin, cover’d with the pall. The great Scutcheon displayed at the head six great tapers burning by in six great silver candlesticks. I gave away about 40 dwt. weights among the officers of the Centur., and sent a cask of 19 Meters of wine among the Seamen. We din’d aboard, treated civilly. The Consul brought flasques of Smyrna wine; Mr. Temple brought 20 flasques, and several fresh provisions. At 6 at night we all returned to Smyrna.’

The Prospect of Constantinople

‘The Prospect of Constantinople, when ye behold it from the top of the Channel, at the distance of two Miles, is beyond compare, as being to my Eyes, as to all that ever saw it, the most Charming Prospect that can be seen.’ This is from the published travel memoir/diary by Jean (or John) Chardin, born all of 380 years ago today. He was an obsessive traveller, revelling in the culture and riches of the Near East, particularly Persia, and his works are considered valuable information sources about the region and period. John Evelyn, in his diary, described him thus: ‘A very handsome person, extremely affable, a modest, well-bred man, not inclined to talk wonders. He spoke Latin, and understood Greek, Arabic, and Persian, from eleven years’ travels in those parts, whither he went in search of jewels, and was become very rich.’

Chardin was born in Paris on 16 November 1643, the son of a wealthy merchant jeweller. He joined his father in business, and in 1664 he was sent overland, with another merchant from Lyon, on a trading mission to the East Indies. In Persia, he won the confidence of the Shah, Abbas II, who appointed him as a royal merchant and also commissioned jewellery of his own design. After travelling to India, he returned to Paris in 1670. The following year, he again set out for Persia, traveling through Turkey, Crimea, and the Caucasus, not reaching Isfahan for nearly two years. He remained in Persia for four years, revisited India, and returned to France (in 1677) via the Cape of Good Hope.

Fleeing French persecution of the Huguenots in 1681, Chardin settled in London, where he became court jeweler and was knighted by King Charles II. That same year, he married Esther, daughter of M. de Lardinière Peigné, councillor in the Parliament of Rouen, then also a Protestant refugee in London. Chardin was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. And in 1684, the king sent him as envoy to Holland, where he stayed some years, operating as agent to the East India Company. He died in 1713, and a funeral monument was raised to his memory in Westminster Abbey, bearing the inscription Sir John Chardin – nomen sibi fecit eundo (‘he made a name for himself by travelling’). Further information is available from Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Iranica.

Chardin kept diaries of his journey, and wrote detailed travelogues - these works are considered highly valuable first hand sources, covering the Safavid period in Persia, and specifically the coronation of the Persian sultan Suleiman III. He published a first volume in 1686, under the title, Journal du voyage du chevalier Chardin en Perse et aux Indes orientales: par la mer Noire et par la Colchide. This is freely available at Internet Archive. Chardin planned three further volumes, also to include some diaries, but these never appeared as envisaged. Thenceforward, the history of Chardin’s written works - republished, reissued and translated in many versions - is both complex and confusing - see Encyclopaedia Iranica for details. Although there is many a reference to his diaries and journals, the narratives in the published books rarely look like verbatim diary extracts.

The following extracts - which are taken from a modernised text of the original 1686 volume: The Travels Sir John Chardin into Persia, Through the Black-Sea, and the Country of Colchis - can be found at the Early English Books Online website, hosted by The University of Michigan Library. 

‘I Departed from Paris, with an Intention to return to the East-Indies, the Seventeenth of August 1671, just Fifteen Months after I came from thence. I undertook this tedious Journey a second time, as well to perfect my self in the Knowledge of the Languages, the Customs, the Religions, the Trades and Sciences, the Commerce and History of the Oriental People as to endeavour the Advancement of my Fortunes and Estate.

[. . .]

The 10th of November we Embark’d in a Vessel under a Holland Convoy, bound for Smyrna. This Fleet was compos’d of six Merchant Men, and two Men of War. The whole Cargo amounted to three Millions of Livers, besides what the Passengers, Mariners, and Captains themselves kept close and undiscover’d, to prevent the Payment of Freight, Custom, and the Consuls Dues. We touch’d at Messina, Zant, and several other Islands of the Archipelago. Near the Island of Micona we had a considerable Dispute with a Corsair of Legorn, about one of his Men who had made his escape aboard us, by swimming a Mile. Upon demand of him, the Corsair sent us word, He would Fight us, if we did not restore him his Seaman; and for our parts we did not think it worth our while to protect him.

[. . .]

I arriv’d at Smyrna the seventh of March 1672, after being four Months at Sea. In which tedious Voyage we endur’d much Cold, and many a boystrous Storm. We were in want of Victuals; nor could we have made this Voyage with more Danger or more Hardship.

I shall not trouble my self to make any Description of Smyrna, where I found nothing worthy Remark, or in any other part of the Archipelago, more than what is to be found in the Relations of Spon, and other Travellers, Men of Learning and Exactness, who have been there since my time. I shall therefore content my self with recounting some Particulars relating to Commerce and History, of which they have not spoken.

The English drive a great Trade at Smyrna, and over all the Levant. This Trade is driv’n by a Royal Company setled at London; which is Govern’d after a most prudent manner, and therefore cannot fail of success. It has stood almost these hundred Years, being first Confirm’d towards the middle of Queen Elizabeth’s Raign. A Raign famous for having, among other Things, giv’n Life to several Trading Companies, particularly those of Hamborough, Russia, Greenland, the East-Indies and Turkie, all which remain to this Day.’

[. . .]

After I had staid twelve days at Smyrna, I embark’d for Constantinople, where I arriv’d the Ninth of March, and Landed without any trouble, any danger, or any expence a very great Quantity of Rich Goods, which I brought along with me, being more then two Horses could carry. For M. de Nointel did me that favour as to give me leave to put his Name and the Flowre de Lices upon my Chests, and then sent for ‘em as belonging to himself. Which was done with the greatest ease in the World. For he presently sent his Interpreter to the Officer of the Custom-House, to let him know that he had two Chests aboard a Flemish Vessel that arriv’d the day before, which belong’d to him; and therefore desir’d they might be deliver’d Custom-free. Accordingly the Officer gave such Order, that the Interpreter went aboard the Dutch Vessel, unladed the two Chests, and sent ‘em to the Ambassador's House, who did me Kindnesses to send ‘em to my Lodging the next day.’

***

‘The 19th of July the Greek Merchant who was to Conduct me to Mingrelia, came to give me notice that the Saic lay at an Anchor near the Mouth of the Black-Sea, and only expected a fair Wind. So that I would presently have gone aboard, but my Friends did not think it convenient, till the Vessel was ready to Sail, for fear I should be discover’d for a French-Man. Thereupon I staid three days with Signor Sinibaldi Fieschi, Resident of Genoa, at a Country-House which he had upon the Bosphorus, and four days more at a fair Monastery of the Greeks, at the end of the Channel upon Europe side, over against the Harbour where the Saic lay at Anchor.

The Thracian Bosphorus is certainly one of the Loveliest parts of the World. The Greeks call Bosphori, those Streights or Arms of the Sea which an Ox may be able to swim over. This Channel is about Fifteen Miles in length, and about Two in breadth, in most parts, but in others less. The Shores consist of Rising Grounds cover’d over with Houses of Pleasure, Wood, Gardens, Parks, Delightful Prospects, Lovely Wildernesses Water’d with Thousands of Springs and Fountains.

The Prospect of Constantinople, when ye behold it from the top of the Channel, at the distance of two Miles, is beyond compare, as being to my Eyes, as to all that ever saw it, the most Charming Prospect that can be seen. The Passage through the Bosphorus is the most lovely and fullest of Divertisement that can be made by Water: And the number of Barks that Sail to and fro in fair Weather is very great. The Resident of Genoa told me, He made it his Pastime to tell the Boats that Sail’d to and fro before his House from Noon to Sun-set, in what time he told no less then Thirteen Hunderd.

There are Four Castles that stand upon the Bosphorus well Fortifi’d with great Guns: Two, Eight Miles from the Black-Sea, and Two more near the Mouth of the Channel. The Two latter were built not above Forty Years ago, to prevent the Cossacks, Muscovite and Polanders from entring into the Mouth of the Channel; who before made frequent Inroads into it with their Barks, almost within sight of Constantinople.’

***

‘The 14. we travell’d five leagues, through a Country full of little Hills, following the same course as the days before, that it is to the North-West, leaving that spacious Plain upon the left hand, which has been the Stage of so many Bloody Battels, fought in the last ages; and in the beginning of this between the Persians and Turks. The people of the Country shew you a great heap of Stones, & affirm it to be the Place where that Battel began, between Selim the Son of Solymon the Great, and Ismahel the Great. Our days Journey ended at Alacou. The Persians assert that this place was so call’d Alacou, by that famous Tartar Prince who conquer’d a great Part of Asia, and there founded a City, ruin’d during the Wars between the Turks and Persians.

The 15. our Journey was not so long as the day before, but the way through which we travell’d was more smooth and easie. We lodg’d at Marant; which is a good fair Town, consisting of about two thousand five hundred houses, and which has so many Gardens, that they take up as much ground as the Houses. It is seated at the bottom of a little Hill, at the end of a Plain, which is a league broad and five long: and which is one of the most lovely and fairest that may be seen; a little River call’d Zelou-lou running through the middle of it: from which the people of the Country cut several Trenches to water their Grounds and their Gardens. Marant is better peopl’d than Nacchivan, and a much fairer Town. There grows about it great plenty of Fruits, and the best in all Media. But that which is most peculiar to these Parts is this, that they gather Cocheneel in the Places adjoyning; though not in any great quantity, nor for any longer time then only eight days in the Summer, when the Sun is in Leo. Before that time the People of the Country assure us, that it does not come to Maturity; and after that time the Worm from whence they draw the Cocheneel, makes a hole in the lease upon which it grows, and is lost. The Persians call Cocheneel Quermis from Querm, which signifies a Worme, because it is extracted out of Worms.’

***

‘The 18. our Journey reach’d to Cashan, where we arriv’d, after we had travell’d seven Leagues, steering toward the South, over the Plain already mention’d: and at the end of two Leagues, we found the Soyl delightful and fertile, stor’d with large Villages. We pass’d through several, and about half the way left upon the left hand, at a near distance, a little City call’d Sarou, seated at the foot of a Mountain.

The City of Cashan is seated in a large Plain, near a high Mountain. It is a League in length, and a quarter of a League in breadth; extending it self in length from East to West. When you see it afar off, it resembles a half Moon, the Corners of which look toward both those Parts of the Heavens. The Draught is no true Representation, either of the Bigness or the Figure; as having been taken without a true Prospect. And the reason was the Indisposition of my Painter, who being extremely tir’d with the former days Travel, was not able to stir out of the Inn, where we lay. All that he could do was to get upon the Terrass, and take the Draught from thence.

There is no River that runs by the City, only several Canals convey’d under Ground, with many deep Springs and Cisterns as there are at Com. It is encompass'd with a double Wall, flank’d with round Towers, after the Ancient Fashion; to which there belong five Gates. One to the East, call’d the Royal Gate; as being near the Royal Palace, that stands without the Walls. Another call’d the Gate of Fieu; because it leads directly to a great Village, which bears that name. Another between the West and North, call’d the Gate of the House of Melic; as being near to a Garden of Pleasure, which was planted by a Lord of that Name. The two other Gates are opposite to the South-East, and North-East. The one call’d Com Gate, and the other Ispahan Gate; be cause they lead to those Cities. The City and the Suburbs, which are more beautiful then the City, contain six thousand five hundred Houses, as the People assure us; forty Mosques, three Colleges, and about two hundred Sepulchres of the Descendants of Aly. The Principal Mosque stands right against the great Market Place, having one Tower, that serves for a Steeple, built of Free Stone. Both the Mosque and the Tower are the Remainders of the Splendour of the first Mahumetans, who invaded Persia.

***

It is worth noting that although I have not been able to find any extracts from Chardin’s actual diaries, he does appear a few times in the pages of John Evelyn’s diary. Here’s Evelyn’s most substantial passage about Chardin.

30 August 1680
‘I went to visit a French gentleman, one Monsieur Chardin, who having been thrice in the East Indies, Persia, and other remote countries, came hither in our return ships from those parts, and it being reported that he was a very curious and knowing man, I was desired by the Royal Society to salute him in their name, and to invite him to honor them with his company. Sir Joseph Hoskins and Sir Christopher Wren accompanied me. We found him at his lodgings in his eastern habit, a very handsome person, extremely affable, a modest, well-bred man, not inclined to talk wonders. He spoke Latin, and understood Greek, Arabic, and Persian, from eleven years’ travels in those parts, whither he went in search of jewels, and was become very rich. He seemed about 36 years of age. After the usual civilities, we asked some account of the extraordinary things he must have seen in traveling over land to those places where few, if any, northern Europeans, used to go, as the Black and Caspian Sea, Mingrelia Bagdad, Nineveh, Persepolis, etc. He told us that the things most worthy of our sight would be, the draughts he had caused to be made of some noble ruins, etc.; for that, besides his own little talent that way, he had carried two good painters with him, to draw landscapes, measure and design the remains of the palace which Alexander burned in his frolic at Persepolis, with divers temples, columns, relievos, and statues, yet extant, which he affirmed to be sculpture far exceeding anything he had observed either at Rome, in Greece, or in any other part of the world where magnificence was in estimation. He said there was an inscription in letters not intelligible, though entire. He was sorry he could not gratify the curiosity of the Society at present, his things not being yet out of the ship; but would wait on them with them on his return from Paris, whither he was going the next day, but with intention to return suddenly, and stay longer here, the persecution in France not suffering Protestants, and he was one, to be quiet. 

He told us that Nineveh was a vast city, now all buried in her ruins, the inhabitants building on the subterranean vaults, which were, as appeared, the first stories of the old city, that there were frequently found huge vases of fine earth, columns, and other antiquities; that the straw which the Egyptians required of the Israelites, was not to bum or cover the rows of bricks as we use, but being chopped small to mingle with the clay, which being dried in the sun (for they bake not in the furnace) would else cleave asunder; that in Persia are yet a race of Ignicolac, who worship the sun and the fire as Gods; that the women of Georgia and Mingrelia were universally, and without any compare, the most beautiful creatures for shape, features, and figure, in the world, and therefore the Grand Seignor and Bashaws had had from thence most of their wives and concubines; that there had within these hundred years been Amazons among them, that is to say, a sort or race of valiant women, given to war; that Persia was extremely fertile; he spoke also of Japan and China, and of the many great errors of our late geographers, as we suggested matter for discourse. We then took our leave, failing of seeing his papers; but it was told us by others that indeed he dared not open, or show them, till he had first showed them to the French King; but of this he himself said nothing.’