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expedition in the Tangkhul area |
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Most of the time was spent in photography and dispensary work, clambering up and down the stepped village, through dust and corn-cobs, with camera, lenses and medicine jappa. But I went one day to climb Chingjui hill. This, seven (22) thousand feet high, rose just behind us. The path up was almost vertical. Long out of use, it had to be re-cut for the expedition; a second cutting-party, a dozen bucks armed with long, fishtailed Eastern Angami daos, accompanied us in case more cutting was needed. |
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For a long time, in steamy heat and an aura of jungle mosquitoes, I toiled up this green cliff with the others crawling respectfully after. Then, as we topped the ridge and met the view, I stopped short. Beyond the first, forested hills below us lay range on range and ridge on ridge, in endless shades of grey, as though the steep winter waves of the Channel had frozen suddenly on a vast scale. Featureless, cold and uncanny, they rolled on till they melted into the lowering sky, and where the two met was one snow-capped peak, standing out against the ominous unknown country in a blaze of white. It was Saramati. There was just the one glimpse of it, bright, unearthly; and then the sun went, and the greyness swallowed it up. |
