CHAPTER IX.
"I will the country see Where old simplicity, Though hid in grey, Doth look more gay Than foppery in plush and scarlet clad." THOMAS RANDOLPH, 1605-35.
A letter from Pamela Reston to her brother.
" ...

It was a tremendous treat to get your budget this morning after three mails of silence.

I got your cable saying you were back before I knew you contemplated going, so I never had to worry.

I think the War has shaken my nerves in a way I hadn't realised.

I never used to worry about you very much, knowing your faculty of falling on your feet, but now I tremble.
"Sikkim must be marvellous, and to try an utterly untried route was thrilling, but what uncomfortable times men do give themselves! To lie in a tiny tent in the soaking rain with your bedding crawling with leeches, 'great, cold, well-nourished fellows.' Ugh! And yet, I suppose you counted the discomforts as nothing when you gazed at Everest while yet the dawn 'walked tiptoe on the mountains' (will it ever be climbed, I wonder!), and even more wonderful, as you describe it, must have been the vision from below the Alukthang glacier, when the mists slowly unveiled the face of Pandim to the moon....
"And I shall soon hear of it all by word of mouth.