No one has ever yet succeeded in scaling Kinchinjanga, and I do not
suppose that any one ever will.

Darjeeling itself, in spite of its magnificent surroundings, looks
like a portion of a transplanted London suburb, but there is a certain
piquancy in reflecting that it is only fifteen miles from the borders
of Tibet. The trim, smug villas of Dalhousie and Auckland Roads may
have electric light, and neat gardens full of primroses; fifteen miles
away civilisation, as we understand the term, ends. There are neither
roads, post-offices, telegraphs nor policemen; these tidy commonplace
"Belle Vues," "Claremonts" and "Montpeliers" are on the very threshold
of the mysterious Forbidden Land. An Army doctor told me that he had
been up at the last frontier telegraph-office of India. It is well
above the line of snows, and one would imagine it a terrible place of
captivity for the Sergeant and four Privates (all white men) in charge
of it, but the spirits of the British Tommy are unquenchable. The men
had amused themselves by painting notices, and the perpetual snow
round the telegraph-office was dotted with boards: "this way to the
swings and boats"; "the public are requested not to walk on the newly
sown grass"; "try our famous shilling teas"; "all season-tickets must
be shown at the barrier," and many more like them. It takes a great
deal to depress the average British soldier.

Natives of India are extraordinarily good at "camouflaging" improvised
surroundings, for they have been used to doing it for centuries. I was
once talking to Lord Kitchener at his official house in Fort William,
Calcutta, when he asked me to come and have a look at the garden. He
informed me that he was giving a garden-party to fifteen hundred
guests in three days' time, and wondered whether the space were
sufficient for it. I told him that I was certain that it was not, and